Through our books, case studies, journal articles, papers, and surveys, the Ash Center is home to some of the world’s most advanced research and publications on issues related to democratic governance and self-governance.
To explore all research authored by Ash Center faculty, please visit the Harvard Kennedy School website. You can view the Ash Center’s open access policy here.
Video
A recent event explored how sports have shaped movements for racial justice, gender equality, religious freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights, and broader inclusion in the United States.
Newest
Occasional Paper
The Transparency for Development (T4D) study was designed to answer the question of whether a community-led transparency and accountability program can improve health outcomes and community empowerment, and, if so, how and in what contexts. To answer this question, researchers and civil society organization partners began by co-designing a program that would activate community participation to address myriad barriers to proper maternal and newborn care, with the ultimate goal of improving maternal and newborn health outcomes. This report presents the design of the program that was then implemented in 200 villages in Tanzania and Indonesia and studied using a mixed methods impact evaluation. In addition to detailing the program, the report outlines how we got there—describing a number of principles that informed some distinguishing features of the program, as well as an iterative design process that defined other features through trial and error.
Occasional Paper
Article
Wouldn’t it make sense to find out—before applying for a job in a dangerous industry—which firms have a safe track record and which don’t? The Obama administration thought so and proposed an online system for accessing workplace safety data. The Trump administration disagreed, delaying it indefinitely—a decision that raises injury risk for thousands of workers.
David Michaels and David Weil argue that OSHA-driven transparency can push dangerous employers to improve: making injury data public would likely “nudge” them into better protecting their workers.
Paper
The growth of experimentation has brought randomized controlled trials (RCTs) into evaluations of complex interventions in policy areas like health care or education, which often occur at the group or society level, at a large scale, and the implementation of which can take myriad forms. For precisely evaluating the benefits of complex programs, RCTs remain the gold standard, frequently used when, for example, a health or education program is under consideration for scaling, is already being done at large scale but is of uncertain benefit, or is almost perfected save for a very specific design question. But often large-scale randomized controlled trials of complex interventions are not the best choice. When, for whatever reason, evaluation of a complex intervention is important but small-scale experimentation is more appropriate than a full RCT, how might further refinement of that intervention be most rigorously and reliably evaluated? This paper describes one approach to such an evaluation.
Article
Archon Fung argues that American democracy is eroding because everyone—campaigns, politicians, journalists, social media platforms, and citizens—pursues narrow self-interest instead of protecting it. He points to attack ads, gerrymandering, policy that favors the wealthy, “fake news,” and low voter turnout as evidence.
Paper
Ahead of launching their community scorecard intervention in 200 villages, the Transparency for Development team surveyed households in Indonesia and Tanzania. This report details the demographics, health conditions, and empowerment levels of the communities included in the sample prior to the intervention. One interesting finding is although respondents rated their local health providers as fairly responsive, very few viewed local government as responsive.
Article
A new OSHA rule, taking effect in 2017, will require large employers and those in high-risk industries to electronically report injury and illness data. Elena Fagotto argues the added transparency will help employers benchmark safety performance and let OSHA target its limited inspection resources more effectively.
Article
The FDA’s new nutrition labels will more clearly show added sugar, calorie counts, and realistic serving sizes, and are being praised by health advocates as key to fighting obesity. However, Elena Fagotto argues these improved labels may not actually help the people who need them most.
Occasional Paper