William Overholt, Ash Center
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North, Room 226
Case studies of democracy and economic development indicate that, in the earliest stages of economic and social development, democratic institutions modeled on the U.S. and western Europe empower an elite at the expense of weaker groups, exacerbate income and educational inequality, and inhibit efficient management of the economy. More»

Matt A. Barreto, University of Washington
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
Pop Center, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge
In 2010 Republicans received a swell of support that returned their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, however they fell short of taking the Senate. Beyond the 60 seat GOP pickup in the House, the big news story of Election 2010 was the Democrats holding on the Senate, against all odds, and to the bewilderment of most pollsters. More»

Gerry Mackie, University of California San Diego
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North, Room 226
Co-sponsored by the Women in Public Policy Program
Gerry Mackie will report on the theory and practice of his work with the West African NGO Tostan since 1998, and UNICEF since 2004, in organizing collective abandonment of female genital cutting and other harmful social practices. His approach combines historical sociology, simple game theory, simple network analysis, social norms, moral psychology, and values deliberations. More»

International Findings from the Legatum Prosperity Index
Jiehae Choi, Nathan Gamester, & Ashley Thomas Lenihan, Legatum Institute
Monday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
Co-sponsored by the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America
The Legatum Prosperity Index is the only global assessment of national prosperity that defines 'prosperity' as encompassing both wealth and well being. The most prosperous nations are not simply those with the highest GDP, but also those with happy, healthy, and free citizens. The Index identifies good governance – effective/accountable government, participatory and fair elections with a reliable rule of law – as one of eight key pillars of a prosperous society. More»

Dan Slater, University of Chicago
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
The fall of Indonesia’s New Order regime in 1998 set the stage for competitive elections, but not necessarily for competitive elites. Political elites primarily responded to democratic transition by promiscuously sharing power, not vigorously competing for it. By carving up the cabinet among all significant parties, they constructed what amounted to a party cartel. More»

The Process and Policies of Immigrant Political Incorporation
Irene Bloemraad, University of California, Berkeley
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
Pop Center, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge
Attacking multiculturalism has become a political cliché, from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proclamation in October 2010 that a multicultural approach had “utterly failed” in Germany, to David Cameron’s speech in February 2011 implying that such policies might foster terrorism. The alternative, for many politicians of the right and left, is stronger integration policies and greater normative emphasis on common citizenship, an argument also advanced by academics. More»

John Dryzek, Australian National University
Tuesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
Co-sponsored by the Program on Science, Technology and Society, HKS
In environmental political theory and associated fields such as ecological economics, it is now widely accepted that deliberative governance ought to be able to promote both effective environmental performance and democratic legitimacy. But do these claims stand up in light of the reality of climate governance, currently so problematic at every level from the local to the global? More»

Barbara Geddes, University of California Los Angeles
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
In this seminar, Professor Barbara Geddes will investigate the survival strategies of dictators whose tenure in office depends on armed supporters. The main threat that faces such leaders is ouster by military coup. Geddes will argue that dictators’ strategy choices for responding to that threat depend on characteristics of the military force from which these rivals are likely to come. More»

Joe Moore, City of Chicago
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
Around the United States, city leaders are increasingly asking their residents for suggestions about budget spending. In Chicago’s 49th Ward, a city council member is going one step further. Through a novel experiment in democracy known as participatory budgeting (PB), Alderman Joe Moore is not just asking their opinions—he is giving his constituents the power to make real decisions about how to spend their tax dollars. More»

Christian Davenport, University of Notre Dame
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
Most researchers have identified that political democracies are generally less repressive in their treatment of those under their rule relative to autocracies. This finding is robust across time, space, measurement, and methodological technique. What this work has missed, however, is how various forms of discrimination are perpetuated within democracies but in a different manner—they take place on a local level and are prevented from creating a "master" cleavage. More»

John Gaventa, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Wednesday, 12-1:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
Over the last decade citizen participation has often been seen as a panacea both for deepening democracy as well as for achieving international development goals. But under what circumstances does participation change or challenge power relations? In a rapidly changing world, how do we understand and analyze power in order to build more effective strategies for citizen engagement? More»

Jeeyang Rhee Baum, Research Fellow, Ash Center
Tuesday, 12-1:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
Under what conditions is a newly democratic government likely to increase transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to its citizens? At this seminar, Jeeyang Rhee Baum will discuss findings from her new book Responsive Democracy, which addresses an important problem in democratic transition and consolidation: the ability of the chief executive to control the state bureaucracy. More»

Jacques Rupnik, Sciences Po (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris)
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
Co-sponsored by the Harvard History and Policy Seminar, HKS
Is it 1989 all over again? There are obvious parallels in the breathtaking speed with which dictatorships can collapse in a chain reaction of non-violent popular mobilizations as well as in the unpredictability of the outcome of the Arab revolutions of 2011. Neither had been predicted or anticipated by analysts and social scientists which is both an invitation to modesty and a call to address some of the rapidly emerging issues of democratic transition. And this is where differences as well as lessons learned matter. More»

Martin Gilens, Princeton University
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
By allowing voters to choose among candidates with competing policy orientations and by providing incentives for incumbents to shape policy in the direction the public desires, elections are thought to provide the foundation that links government policy to the preferences of the governed. In this seminar, Gilens examines the extent to which the preference/policy link is biased toward the preferences of high-income Americans. More»

Yu Keping, Director, Center for Chinese Government Innovations, Peking University
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
Yu Keping will illustrate briefly the whole process of governance reform since the Reform in 1978 in China, including achievements, breakthrough reforms, map line, dynamics, and reform focus in the near future. He will also frankly discuss and analyze the biggest challenges faced by the Chinese government today—or put another way, the most unsatisfactory issues that concern the public about their government. More»

Klaus Welle, Secretary-General of the European Parliament
Monday, 2:45-4 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
Co-sponsored by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, and the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe, Harvard Kennedy School
Klaus Welle is the European Parliament’s most senior official. Appointed by its Bureau, he is responsible for Parliament’s administration, heading the Secretariat. Welle assists the President, the Bureau, the political groups and the elected Members of the European Parliament. More»

Aboubakr Jamaï, Publisher of Le Journal Hebdomadaire and Assahifa al-Ousbouiya
Wednesday, 12-1:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
Co-sponsored by the Middle East Initiative, HKS
Has Morocco found the magic formula? The right path to democracy, that is a reformist path without the vagaries of revolutionary upheaval? On July 1, 98 percent of Moroccans approved a new constitution said to give more prerogatives to elected institutions at the expense of the monarchy. More»

Kenneth Greene, University of Texas, Austin
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn, Suite 200-North
Why do incumbents in competitive authoritarian regimes continue to win elections or lose power? Employing a time-series cross-national analysis of election outcomes, Professor Kenneth Greene will show that autocratic incumbents or their parties endure despite poor economic performance, economic modernization, and trade openness. More»

Christopher Wlezien, Temple University
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
The link between public opinion and policy is of special importance in representative democracies. There is interest in policymakers' responsiveness to public opinion. There also is interest in public responsiveness to policy itself. Only a small number of studies compare either policy or public responsiveness across political systems, however. More»

Devra Moehler, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
Many developing countries include candidate pictures and party symbols on electoral ballots in order to allow autonomous voting by citizens with little education and voting experience. Advocates of visual cues argue that they reduce error and they allow illiterate voters to identify candidates and parties and mark their ballots in private, rather than having to rely on assistance from others who may try to alter their votes. However, these symbols might themselves shape voter preferences—and, hence, election outcomes—in unintended ways. More»

Steven Heydemann, United States Institute of Peace
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
Co-sponsored the Middle East Initiative, HKS
This presentation will address questions about the extent to which issues of economic justice and popular preferences for distributive equity factor into repertoires of collective action in Arab societies, and continue to shape popular reactions to shifts in economic policy that expose citizens to increased levels of economic insecurity. Heydemann will focus on the historical processes through which popular conceptions of distributive justice became institutionalized within systems of economic governance in Arab societies in ways that have had enduring effects on state-society relations. More»

Dara O’Rourke, University of California, Berkeley
Monday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
Co-sponsored by the Transparency Policy Project and the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government
By simply downloading an app, consumers can access environmental, social,and health impacts of more than 140,000 products. What does this mean for market interactions? What are the implications for governance of global supply chains? GoodGuide Co-founder Dara O’Rourke will discuss the promise and peril of pushing the envelope in a new age of transparency. More | Interview

Andrea Louise Campbell, MIT
Wednesday, 4:10-5:30 p.m.
124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200-North
In this seminar, Professor Campbell shares excerpts from a new book project exploring the nature of Americans’ attitudes toward taxes and the implications for the politics of taxation. First she uses insights from cognitive psychology and behavioral economics to explore the ways in which the designs of taxes and elite rhetoric can obscure individuals’ self-interest and produce tax attitudes that stray from citizens’ material stakes. More»