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
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.
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
Video
Two Americas Emerging: Voting Rights in the States
In the nearly one year since the November 2020 elections, the diverging directions state legislatures took on expanding or contracting voting rights created a huge fault line in American democracy, described by some as ‘two Americas’. A Voting Rights Lab tracking report as of September 13, 2021, identified 27 states representing 70 million voters that had passed laws to expand voting opportunities, and 13 states with 55 million people that had passed sharply restrictive legislation. And state legislatures were still at work. What’s causing this divergence?
How are voting rights advocates advancing their work in such disparate political environments? What does it mean for upcoming elections and the future of American democracy? Join the Ash Center as voting advocates from two key states that have gone in opposite directions and policy experts evaluated the trends, discussed the present, and looked into the future.
Speakers include:
- Mimi Marziani, President and CEO Texas civil rights project
- Henal Patel, Director of the Democracy & Justice Program, New Jersey Institute of Social Justice
- Randy Perez, Program Director, Voting Rights Lab
- Jake Grumbach, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington
- Miles Rapoport, Ash Center Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy, Moderator
Policy Brief
Understanding the Role of Local Election Officials: How Local Autonomy Shapes U.S. Election Administration
Feature
Rocking the vote from the ER to the Peach State
Two Kennedy School student research projects chart path forward on voter engagement.
Feature
Is Mandatory Voting the Answer to Our Voting Wars?
Ash Center Fellow Miles Rapoport helps ignite a public debate on implementing universal voting in the United States
Feature
Valerie Jarrett on the value of a vote + reaching Gen-Z
Board Chair of When We All Vote Valerie Jarret discusses voter engagement at a virtual Harvard Votes Challenge event on National Voter Registration Day
Video
This is why we still have the Electoral College
The Electoral College is the system by which Americans elect their president every four years. When American voters go to the polls for a presidential election, they are actually voting for a slate of electors who have pledged to support a specific candidate. These electors cast their own votes, and the winner is elected to the presidency. Two hundred years ago, the Framers incorporated the Electoral College into the United States Constitution, and to this day it remains one of the most controversial aspects of that document. But despite numerous attempts to reform or even abolish it, the Electoral College remains the mechanism by which Americans choose their president every four years. So why is it still around? Alex Keyssar, Matthew W. Stirling, Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, explores this subject in his latest book, “Why Do We Still Have The Electoral College?”
The answer is not as straight forward as one might think, and in this video Professor Keyssar discusses the myriad reasons that we still follow with what he calls, “a process that does not conform to democratic principles the nation has publicly championed.”
Behind the Book is a collaboration between the Office of Communications and Public Affairs and Library and Knowledge Services at Harvard Kennedy School.
Policy Brief
Lift Every Voice: The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting
Media Release
New report by Voting Rights Advocates, Practitioners, and Scholars Details Need for Universal Civic Duty Voting
Video
Protest, Mobilization, and the 2020 Election: The Role of Philanthropy
The Ash Center hosted a conversation with leading practitioners in philanthropy who talked about all of these issues and the urgency that the times demand.
Policy Brief
Union Impact on Voter Participation—And How to Expand It
Video
A Full Census Count Amidst Pandemic
Counting every person in the census is critical to the proper functioning of a democracy. The Ash Center hosted a conversation with census experts for an update on the 2020 census.
Video
Book Talk: We Own the Future — Democratic Socialism, American Style
The Ash Center hosted a discussion with Peter Dreier, co-editor of We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style. Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, will moderate.