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.
Policy Brief
The 2024 election saw Donald Trump make significant gains among young voters, increasing his support among 18- to 29-year-olds by 10 percentage points. This report aims to investigate the deeper issues at stake that are causing this historical shift.
Newest
Video
In this webinar, panelists drew upon lessons from around the world about how civil society groups can protect and promote democracy and the rule of law during episodes of democratic backsliding.
In this paper, Maya Sen and her co-authors examine enduring features of the American federal judiciary that systematically favor conservative political and policy outcomes. By situating the United States within a comparative context, the authors argue that these structural aspects of the judiciary contribute to a consistent ideological bias toward conservatism in legal decisions.
In this article, according to new research from Maya Sen and her co-authors, as political survey questions become more complex, people are more likely to choose the first options on a list, especially if they have less knowledge and the question is long—making it better for researchers to keep questions short rather than trying to simplify the wording.
Many Republican candidates ran on a ‘Tough on Crime’ platform, but new research from the Ash Center’s Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, using 30 years of data, suggests elected officials have little impact on city crime rates.
Open Access Resource
This paper aims to provide a roadmap for governing AI. In contrast to the reigning paradigms, we argue that AI governance should be not merely a reactive, punitive, status-quo-defending enterprise, but rather the expression of an expansive, proactive vision for technology—to advance human flourishing.
Article
In this paper, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner and his co-authors find that mayoral partisanship has little causal effect on crime, policing, or arrest rates in U.S. cities, though it may modestly influence the racial composition of arrests.
Occasional Paper
Video
The Ash Center hosted an online book talk with author Marietje Schaake and discussant Bruce Schneier on Schaake’s latest work, The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. The discussion was moderated by Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation.
Book
In this book, Empowering Affected Interests, Archon Fung and Sean W. D. Gray explore the radical implications of the All-Affected Principle in a globalized world, bringing together leading theorists to examine how democracy might be reimagined to address cross-border interdependence on issues like immigration, climate change, and labor markets.