Podcast
What does it take to stand up for what you believe in when your personal safety, security and even liberty are at stake? Ami Fields-Meyer, a political strategist and former senior policy advisor in the Biden-Harris White House, joins Terms of Engagement hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to speak about speaking out in tumultuous times.
What does it take to stand up for what you believe in when your personal safety, security and even liberty are at stake? Ami Fields-Meyer, a political strategist and former senior policy advisor in the Biden-Harris White House, who spent the last two years crisscrossing the globe interviewing more than a hundred dissidents, organizers, and everyday people who chose to speak out despite real risk. That reporting became his new book, co-written with journalist Julia Angwin, “On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear,” which distills those stories into practical lessons anyone can use. From authoritarian drift to cancel culture to corporate retaliation, Fields-Meyer joins Terms of Engagement hosts Archon Fung and Stephen Richer to discuss the psychology, mechanics and practicalities of speaking out in tumultuous times.
Coming soon!
Ami Fields-Meyer is a New York Times bestselling author, political strategist, and former White House senior policy advisor. His first book, “On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear,” co-authored with Julia Angwin, is a deeply reported manual about how anyone can defy an authoritarian – based on original interviews with more than 100 dissidents, activists, and theorists across the world. From 2021 to 2024, Fields-Meyer served as a senior policy advisor in the White House, where he led U.S. policy on civil rights, consumer protection, and technology. He has advised political candidates, leaders of top civil rights groups and major philanthropic foundations, and high-profile public officials. A former senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, his writing on democracy and public policy has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Foreign Policy. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Archon Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance with a focus on public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He has authored five books, four edited collections, and over fifty articles appearing in professional journals. He received two S.B.s — in philosophy and physics — and his Ph.D. in political science from MIT.
Stephen Richer is the former elected Maricopa County Recorder, responsible for voter registration, early voting administration, and public recordings in Maricopa County, Arizona, the fourth largest county in the United States. Prior to being an elected official, Stephen worked at several public policy think tanks and as a business transactions attorney. Stephen received his J.D. and M.A. from The University of Chicago and his B.A. from Tulane University. Stephen has been broadly recognized for his work in elections and American Democracy. In 2021, the Arizona Republic named Stephen “Arizonan of the Year.” In 2022, the Maricopa Bar Association awarded Stephen “Public Law Attorney of the Year.” In 2023, Stephen won “Leader of the Year” from the Arizona Capitol Times. And in 2024, Time Magazine named Stephen a “Defender of Democracy.”
The views expressed on this show are those of the hosts alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.
Coming soon!
Podcast
Thomas Hicks, who was fired as head of the federal Election Assistance Commission on July 9 when President Donald Trump dismissed all three serving commissioners, joins Terms of Engagement to discuss what the agency does and what the move might mean for the upcoming midterms and future elections.
Feature
For Marcus Board Jr., democracy has never been just an academic subject—it has always been about people. As a 2025-2027 Democracy Visiting Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, the Howard University political scientist explores how scholarship and community practice can work together to strengthen democracy.
In this conversation, Board reflects on the experiences, ideas, and relationships that have shaped his work.
Podcast
Richard Hanania, a writer and former alt-right influencer who renounced MAGA and now favors political rule by elites, joins Terms of Engagement to discuss his book “Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster.” The book is named for the Greek word meaning “rule by the worst.”
