Cambridge, MA – Today, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, announced the finalists for the 2018 Innovations in American Government Award. Seven programs, listed below, will compete for a $50,000 grand prize this fall in Cambridge.... Read more about Ash Center Announces Finalists for Innovations in American Government Award

In Boston for a performance with Arcade Fire, the Montréal-based rock band he helped found, the Ash Center sat down Will Butler, a 2017 graduate of Harvard Kennedy School’s mid-career MPA program for a conversation on the intersection of public policy, the arts, and his efforts to strengthen a culture of public engagement and participation in government and elections... Read more about Arcade Fire's Will Bulter on Voting & Civic Participation

The Ash Center sat down with Scott Mainwaring, the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor for Brazil Studies and an Ash Center resident faculty affiliate. Mainwaring also serves as faculty co-chair of the Brazil Studies Program at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Mainwaring is editor of the recently published Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay, and Collapse (Cambridge University Press, 2018).... Read more about Scott Mainwaring on Party Systems in Latin America

Nisreen Haj Ahmad MC/MPA ’08, a former visiting research fellow at the Ash Center, spent the first seven years of her professional career enmeshed in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team. By the end of her tenure as a Palestinian negotiator, “I was depressed,” she recalls. “I studied law to defend the rights of oppressed people.” However, the minutiae and grinding pace of negotiations led Haj Ahmad to question whether the power of law was sufficient to impact the lives of ordinary Palestinians.

In 2007, wanting to gain new perspective, she seized an opportunity to attend Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) as a mid-career student... Read more about Ash Alumna Sparks Community Organizing in Jordan

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the country’s top court Wednesday (June 27). Kennedy has long been a crucial swing vote on key Supreme Court decisions, and his replacement has the opportunity to significantly change the ideological makeup of the court. Maya Sen, associate professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, has researched the political leaning of courts and is an expert Supreme Court watcher. We asked her about the impact Kennedy’s retirement will have on the court and the country... Read more about Maya Sen on Anthony Kennedy's Retirement