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.
The World’s Protracted and Deepening Democratic Recession, and How to Reverse It
Harvard community members joined the Ash Center for a Democracy in Hard Places Initiative event featuring Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
This essay was adopted from a presentation given by Nick Couldry at the Second Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reimagining Democracy held on the campus of Harvard Kennedy School in December 2023.
Abstract: As perhaps the most consequential technology of our time, Generative Foundation Models (GFMs) present unprecedented challenges for democratic institutions. By allowing deception and de-contextualized information sharing at a previously unimaginable scale and pace, GFMs could undermine the foundations of democracy. At the same time, the investment scale required to develop the models and the race dynamics around that development threaten to enable concentrations of democratically unaccountable power (both public and private). This essay examines the twin threats of collapse and singularity occasioned by the rise of GFMs.
This essay was adopted from a presentation given by Jon Evans at the Second Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reimagining Democracy held on the campus of Harvard Kennedy School in December 2023.
This essay was adopted from a presentation given by Eugene Fischer at the Second Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reimagining Democracy held on the campus of Harvard Kennedy School in December 2023.
“This Ancient Atrocity”: The Return of Child Labor in the United States: Why Now? What Should be Done?
Child labor in the US is surging with recent investigations and reporting finding violations in meat processing, automobile, packaged food and seafood manufacturing.