Read the latest news, commentary, and analysis from the Ash Center.
Commentary
As the dust settles from the U.S. presidential election, the American public can celebrate that the election process was largely nonviolent and smooth. However, it is important that the public not be lulled into thinking this signals the end of election administrators’ problems.
Newest
Video
Join the Ash Center for an online conversation with Donald Cohen, co-author of “The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We can Fight Back” (The New Press, 2021). Lizabeth Cohen, the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the History Department at Harvard University, served as moderator.
Feature
Analysis by Harvard Kennedy School’s Pippa Norris and co-author Kseniya Kizilova shows nationalism and desire to protect democratic freedoms motivate Ukrainian citizens to resist Russia’s invasion.
Video
Join the Ash Center for an online book talk with Michael Kazin, author of “What it Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party” (Macmillan, 2022). Randall Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School served as moderator.
Q+A
Saich, an expert on the political economy of China, sat down with the Ash Center to explore the evolution of China and Russia’s relationship and how now, Beijing views the unfolding events in Ukraine.
Video
The Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project and the Carr Center for Human Rights hosted a discussion with scholars studying processes and practices of global truth telling, repair, and justice from the fields of law, government, and political science.
Q+A
Maya Sen, an expert on the politics of the judiciary, comments on Breyer’s legacy, his likely replacement, and the Supreme Court’s rightward shift.
Media Release
Q+A
To discuss the filibuster and its impact on voting rights and the Senate, we sat down with Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Democracy at Harvard Kennedy School and the director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Democratic Governance Program.
Video
We are in the midst of one of the most rancorous redistricting sessions in our country’s history. Partisan officials – mostly but not only in conservative legislatures – are using the drawing of new congressional, state and local election districts to amass disproportionate power for themselves. How successfully can this be resisted? Meanwhile, the many independent/nonpartisan commissions established in states in recent years were meant to help avoid this problem. Are they working to do so? If so, which ones are, which ones aren’t, where and why?
Join the Ash Center and Equal Democracy Project at Harvard Law School to learn about the state of redistricting in this moment, litigation that is occurring under a dramatically weakened Voting Rights Act, and how different redistricting commissions are faring, with:
Ben Schneer, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School
Mitchell Brown, Counsel, Voting Rights, Southern Coalition for Social Justice
Colleen Mathis, former Chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission of Arizona
Cathy Duvall, Managing Consultant, Fair Representation in Redistricting
Moderated by: Nick Stephanopoulos, Harvard Law School