Read the latest news, commentary, and analysis from the Ash Center.
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Commentary
Why I’m Excited About the White House’s Proposal for a Higher Ed Compact
Last week’s leak of the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” drew intense reactions across academia. Critics call it government overreach threatening free expression, while supporters see a chance for reform and renewed trust between universities and policymakers. Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, director of the Democratic Knowledge Project and the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, weighs in.
Non-Citizen Voting in Boston: The Next Step for Expanding the Franchise?
As efforts get underway to expand the franchise to non-citizens in Boston, the Ash Center and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston hosted a conversation to learn about how non-citizen voting once was the norm and how it’s making a comeback.
Harvard Ash Center Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy Miles Rapoport advocates that universal voting, a requirement that every citizen cast a ballot, could reduce polarization and pave a pathway to a more equitable American democracy.
Courting the AAPI Vote: How Political Parties Plan to Reach AAPI Voters in the 2022 Elections
The 2020 election saw a dramatic increase in Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) voter participation—increasing ten percentage points over 2016. In the runup to the 2022 midterm elections, how will political parties continue to court AAPI voters? What strategies work to reach the growing AAPI community?
Book Talk: Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism
Join us for a book talk with Roselyn Hsueh, Temple University Associate Professor of Political Science and author of the forthcoming “Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism: Sectoral Pathways to Globalization in China, India, and Russia” (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Hsueh discussed how her book’s Strategic Value Framework shows that the perceived strategic value orientation of state elites rooted in significant phases of internal and external pressures shape dominant patterns of market governance, which vary by country and sector within country. Specifically, Hsueh’s research demonstrates techno-security developmentalism in China has shaped bifurcated capitalism, which governs dual-use capital- and knowledge-intensive versus labor-intensive industries. In India, neoliberal self-reliance has determined the bifurcated liberalism, which grounds transnationally networked high-tech versus rural, small-scale sectors. A bifurcated oligarchy governs defense and resource-oriented versus labor-intensive sectors in Russia shaped by resource security nationalism.
Edward Cunningham, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Director of Ash Center China Programs and of the Asia Energy and Sustainability Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School, moderated.
This discussion was co-sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard Kennedy School China Society, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute.
The Advantage of Disadvantage: Costly Protest and Political Representation for Marginalized Groups
Tune in to a virtual book talk featuring former Ash Center Postdoctoral Democracy Fellow LaGina Gause, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Gause, author of “The Advantage of Disadvantage: Costly Protest and Political Representation for Marginalized Groups,” was joined by respondent Hahrie Han, Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at Harvard Kennedy School, Director of the Ash Center’s Democratic Governance Programs, moderated.
This event was co-sponsored by the Center for American Political Studies (CAPS).
