This week, Archon Fung and Stephen Richer are joined by Suresh Naidu, Professor of International and Public Affairs and Jack Wang and Echo Ren Professor of Economics at Columbia University, to discuss ...

From rank-choice voting to reconciliation, American democracy is headline news. Let’s talk about it. On Tuesday, July 15, 2025, Ash Center’s Archon Fung and Stephen Richer hosted the first episode of ...

A Summer Reading List for America’s 250th Anniversary On July 4, 2026, America will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. As this milestone approaches, the ...

Five Years Later, Erica Licht and Nikhil Raghuveera Bid Farewell to Untying Knots Over the past five years, Untying Knots has served as a vital platform for conversations about racial justice, ...

Caren Yap, MPP 25, drew on her immigrant background and Nevada roots to bring a powerful commitment to equity and community engagement to the Harvard Kennedy School, where she challenged institutional ...

Governments throughout history have used detention as a tool to silence dissent, isolate marginalized groups, and punish with impunity – often targeting people based on race, status, or supposed ...

Despite these unprecedented investments in mobilizing voters, overall trust in electoral health, democratic institutions, voter satisfaction, and electoral engagement have significantly declined. What ...

US democratic backsliding encourages repression abroad — but also protest Matthew Cebul and Sharan Grewal explain that dictators around the world have been emboldened by the Trump administration’s ...

In this paper, Mary W. Graham, co-director of the Center’s Transparency Policy Project, explores the unintended information inequities that weaken the nation’s vital health and safety alerts. By ...

Weaponized AI: A New Era of Threats and How We Can Counter It Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation Fellow Dr. Shlomit Wagman lays out a framework to address the threats artificial intelligence poses to ...

When Stephen Richer, former Republican county recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, joined the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), it marked the latest ...

Over the past several weeks, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) within the Trump Administration has been embedding staff in a range of United States federal agencies. These staff have ...