Archon Fung
Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation;
Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government
Reimagining Democracy Program
Reimagining our political institutions to meet the democratic challenges of today.
To confront the growing challenges to democracy around the world, it’s time for new ideas.
Democracy requires deep and structural changes to survive and grow. The Ash Center’s Reimagining Democracy Program provides scholars and those on the frontlines of our democracy with a space for generating ambitious ideas and practices to make democracy more resilient, responsive, and inclusive.
Meet the Team
Tova Wang
Director of Research Projects in Democratic Practice
Upcoming Events
Labor in the Courts: How Unions Have Stood Up for Workers’ Rights During the First 100 Days
Online Event
Virtual Event
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EDT
Labor at the Polls: Understanding How Union Members Approached the 2024 Election
Online Event
Virtual Event
11:00 am – 12:30 pm EDT
The Latest News and Research
Policy Brief
Ensuring All Votes Count: Reducing Rejected Ballots
Feature
How to design term limits for the Supreme Court
Scholars conclude terms limits would help restore ideological balance to the nation’s highest court
Q+A
“Lengthy and convoluted and vague”: HKS historian Alex Keyssar on the problems with the Electoral Count Act and how proposed reforms could fix it
A law written in post-Civil War America to try to avoid problems with the counting of Electoral College votes has never been very clear. A new set of proposed reforms tries to change that.
Feature
What happens when sports stadiums and arenas are used as polling sites?
Research shows professional sports stadiums and arenas are not only ideal polling locations, but support for their use in elections reaches across the aisle and benefits the team.
Media Release
Decade-long study shows Supreme Court is now further to the ideological right than most Americans
Video
Beyond Winner-Take-All: Possibilities for Proportional Voting in the United States
At a time when many are rightly concerned about the health of American democracy, scholars and reformers are evaluating proposals to make democracy more functional and representative. One such proposal is to move beyond the winner-take-all electoral system used at the federal and state levels in the United States to enable adoption of proportional voting systems. What would be the impact of proportional voting in the United States, and what will it take to enact it?
Join panelists Rob Richie, President and CEO of FairVote, Rebecca Chavez-Houck, Community Engagement Consultant and Former Utah State Legislator, and Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University in discussion. 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.
Feature
Should all residents—including noncitizens—be able to vote in Boston?
Following recent victories in San Francisco and New York City, Boston advocates are looking to expand the franchise to all residents with legal status for local elections.
Video
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.
Video
Should voting be a right or a requirement?
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.
Feature
How Democracy Drives the Resistance in Ukraine
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.
Q+A
The future of the filibuster and voting rights in Congress
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
The State of Redistricting and the 2022 Elections
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
Feature
The Responsibility of Intellectuals to a Changing City
George R. Greenidge. Jr. HGSE ‘96, Ash Center Democracy Visiting Fellow, doesn’t draw a line between scholarship and community advocacy, using both to combat gentrification and racial injustice.
Video
Getting Past Partisanship and Polarization: Community Civic Infrastructure
In this panel discussion, community organizers, leaders, and democracy advocates explored examples from communities all over the country where this is working today. Then, they discussed the challenge of replicating and expanding community civic infrastructure initiatives across the country.
Q+A
Massachusetts Uniquely Positioned to Adopt Universal Voting Argues Miles Rapoport
Requiring citizens to vote, or actively abstain, would increase voter participation and make democracy more representative in the Bay State says Ash Center Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy.