Podcast
Terms of Engagement – The Power of Political Parody
New York Times Opinion Columnist Michelle Goldberg joins Stephen Richer and Archon Fung to discuss “South Park” and the role political satires play in political discourse.
Occasional Paper
Problem-Solving at the Community Scale: A Deweyan Approach to the Democratic Practices of Minoritized Groups within the United States, South Africa, and Australia
By:
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Katharina Liesenberg
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Michael Lucas
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Stefan Chavez-Norgaard
Programs
Issues
The democratic “recession” across the globe is emerging as a political hallmark of the 21st century. This is evidenced by the incremental breakdown of formal, political democratic practices and institutions among many nations, including in the North Atlantic states, as well as by the fear or anticipation of democratic erosion. This paper uses a pragmatist approach to demonstrate how, in the face of democratic breakdowns, resilient democratic practices are taking form in remarkably varied ways in the common structural context of settler-colonial nation-states that are nominally in stages of advanced democratic consolidation.
More from this Program
Podcast
Terms of Engagement – The Great American Redistrict-Off
A fight is brewing between some of America’s largest states. A line has been drawn, not in the sand, but on a Texas map.
Feature
From South Texas to Cambridge, Josh Cortez Carries His Story Forward
When Josh Cortez crossed the stage to graduate from Harvard Kennedy School in May 2025 as a recipient of the Roy and Lila Ash Scholarship in Democracy, he carried more than a degree—he carried generations of heritage, grit, and purpose. His story doesn’t begin in Cambridge but hundreds of years earlier, on the banks of the Rio Grande in Starr County, Texas.
Podcast
Terms of Engagement – The Great American Redistrict-Off
A fight is brewing between some of America’s largest states. A line has been drawn, not in the sand, but on a Texas map.
Article
Chicago’s Solution To Public Pension Debt is a Generational Scam
In this op-ed, Jennifer Hochschild explains that Chicago is facing a financial crisis decades in the making — a crushing burden of pension debt that no current resident created but all must bear. Instead she says, it is the result of a century of political promises, underfunded commitments, and systemic avoidance — leaving Chicagoans to reckon with the consequences today.
Podcast
Terms of Engagement – Democracy: The Worst Form of Government — Except All the Rest?
A majority of people agree that democracy is worth fighting for, but when asked if democracy is at risk, opinions begin to differ. Are we all operating under the same idea of what a democracy truly is?