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.
Paper
A new paper by Executive Session on Elections and Election Administration members Trey Grayson, Tammy Patrick, Judd Choate, Wesley Wilcox and Al Schmidt advocates for strengthening and investing in state associations to support election administrators year-round.
Newest
Article
In a recent American Journal of Public Health essay, Ash Center Director Archon Fung, Democracy Visiting Fellow Aditya S. Pawar, former Non-resident Fellow Jon Alexander, and their co-authors examine how public deliberation and civic engagement can produce more efficient and reliable public health policy.
Article
In a recent Journal of Democracy article, Matthew Cebul, Lead Research Fellow for the Nonviolent Action Lab, explores the global pattern of anticorruption movements. He assesses mechanisms for navigating the “accountability-defections dilemma”—balancing the need to encourage authoritarian regime defections while maintaining democratic accountability.
Policy Brief
As technology reshapes how public officials communicate with their communities, this policy brief offers recommendations for modernizing Massachusetts Open Meeting Law to protect transparency and accountability while enabling the tools that expand access to government.
Paper
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation authors offer the first comprehensive analysis of how Massachusetts municipalities are using technology to support civic engagement, government decision-making, and public service delivery.
Policy Brief
Survey nearly 10,000 hourly workers at 67 of the country’s largest service-sector employers — Walmart, Waffle House, Amazon — and you’d expect their politics to split them on everything. Instead, 78 percent of MAGA-identified workers and 96 percent of Harris voters back a $15 minimum wage, and across the board, workers converge on the same figure for what it would actually take to get by: $24 an hour, 40 hours a week. What they’re actually paid falls $7 short. The bigger problem may not be the wage gap at all — it’s who workers think is responsible for closing it.
Additional Resource
Published as the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights’ essay collection “Self-Evident Truths” gathers faculty and fellows across Harvard’s schools including the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, to examine how well America has fulfilled its promise that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights.
The included essays span democracy, technology, public health, immigration, climate, and more, providing a nuanced look at what is required to fully realize the nation’s founding ideals today.
As state and local election officials navigate complex problems, what practical solutions can strengthen their work today and equip them for the challenges ahead? A recent piece in electionline Weekly highlights the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Executive Session on Elections and Election Administration, bringing together a small, bipartisan group of state and local election officials, academics, and experts to develop innovative strategies for addressing the most pressing challenges in election administration.
Paper
As traditional news declines, content creators play a growing role as information sources. This paper proposes frameworks for effective collaboration between creators and election officials and offers recommendations for officials to develop their own social media content.
Additional Resource
This resource provides accessible, reliable information on constitutional history and the roles and responsibilities involved in administering congressional elections in the United States, with the goal of advancing civic understanding among government officials, media, civic organizations, and the American public.