Q+A
In what ways does Inauguration Day 2025 symbolize the resilience or fragility of American democracy?
On January 20, 2025, as Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, the nation reached a critical turning point.
News and Analysis
Read the latest news, commentary, and analysis from the Ash Center.
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Feature
Story of Igiugig
Patrick Lynch MC/MPA 2019 partnered with Indigenous filmmakers to tell the story of native sovereignty in Alaska.
Video
Honoring Nations 2021 Awards Presentations
Six exceptional tribal programs were selected by the Harvard Project’s Honoring Nations Program as finalists for the prestigious 2021 awards in American Indian governance. At the heart of Honoring Nations is the principle that tribes themselves hold the key to generating social, political, cultural, and economic prosperity and that self-governance plays a crucial role in building and sustaining strong, healthy Indian nations.
2021’s outstanding finalists were:
- Agua Caliente People Curriculum
Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians - Cherokee Nation ONE FIRE
Cherokee Nation - Energy Lifeline Sector Resilience: Low-carbon Microgrids
Blue Lake Rancheria - Pe Sla
The Great Sioux Nation - Sitka Tribe of Alaska Environmental Lab
Sitka Tribe of Alaska - Swinomish Tax Authority
Swinomish Indian Tribal Community
Commentary
Honoring and Fostering Innovation in Indian Country
Through its latest round of awardees in the Honoring Nations program, the Harvard Project highlights how Indigenous people are tackling the challenges of (re)building healthy, vibrant nations.
Media Release
National Search Yields Six Innovative Native Programs For Harvard’s 2021 Honoring Nations Awards in Governance
Video
Transforming Boston: A Black and Brown Justice Agenda for the New Mayor
The Ash Center, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Center for Public Leadership, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston hosted a conversation on the urgent issues – from education and housing to economic development and communal violence – that the next mayor of Boston must address to rectify structural inequities and support Black and Brown communities.
Media Release
New Harvard Project Research Examines ARPA Distributions to Tribal Nations, Finds Funding to be “Grossly Inequitable”
Video
Democracy Deep Dive: January 6th and the Threat to American Democracy
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee issued a major report in October 2021 claiming to show “the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis” during the events before and after the January 6 “capitol insurrection.” This crisis was prevented only by “a number of upstanding Americans in the Department of Justice.” “Donald Trump was unable to bend the department to his will. But it was not due to a lack of effort,” the report goes on. But, the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee responded that Trump “did not weaponize DOJ for his personal or campaign purposes” in their own report. Join Harvard Kennedy School historian Alexander Keyssar and Harvard Law School law of democracy scholar Guy Uriel-Charles as they parsed the major revelations in these reports and helped us to understand how these events may foreshadow future crises in American Democracy. Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at Harvard Kennedy School, moderated.
Video
Rethinking the US Constitution through a Participatory Process
What would it be like to really rethink our Constitution? In this webinar, we learned about participatory constitution building, a way of writing a new constitution with full public participation. Participatory constitution building is common around the world, but how it is designed and the process by which it is undertaken is critical to making it a success anywhere. We learned with experts on participatory constitution building globally, in Chile at this moment, and among tribal governments. What are the practices we might think about as we reconsider the strengths and weaknesses of our own constitution in this country?
Speakers included:
- Erin Houlihan, Program Officer, International IDEA
- Pamela Figueroa Rubio, Académica, Facultad de Humanidades – Universidad De Santiago
- Joseph Kalt, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, HKS; Co-Director, The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
- Co-moderated by Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, Harvard Kennedy School
- Pedro Arcain Riccetto, Democracy Visiting Fellow, Ash Center
Towards Platform Democracy: Policymaking Beyond Corporate CEOs and Partisan Pressure
Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms make incredibly impactful decisions about the speech of billions. Right now, those decisions are primarily in the hands of corporate CEO’s—and heavily influenced by pressure from partisan and authoritarian governments aiming to entrench their own power.
Aviv Ovadya proposes an alternative: platform democracy.