Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

In the AI Story

The Center's research agenda reflects Fung's distinctive approach: systematic empirical analysis of democratic institutions combined with practical engagement with governance design challenges. Its projects on participatory budgeting in the United States, on transparency policy across multiple domains, and on democratic innovation in authoritarian contexts represent the range of institutional questions the Center addresses.

The December 2024 workshop was a significant moment in the Center's engagement with AI. The premise — that democracy movements have experienced historic decline in capacity to challenge autocratic governments, due in part to the changing technology landscape — framed AI governance not as an abstract policy question but as a concrete question about the institutional capacity of civil society actors. The workshop findings documented that AI concentrates surveillance and censorship capabilities in states that already possess them, while concentrating persuasion and attention-capture capabilities in corporations — an asymmetric dynamic that operates across regime types.

The Center's GETTING-Plurality Research Network has curated reading lists and research agendas on AI and democracy that situate technology governance within broader democratic theory. The framing connects questions of technology ethics to classical questions about the institutional conditions under which collective self-governance is possible — the framing that shapes Fung's application of empowered participatory governance to AI.

The Center's institutional position at Harvard Kennedy School provides specific advantages for this work: proximity to policymakers, access to interdisciplinary resources, and a tradition of translating academic research into policy engagement. The combination supports the characteristic Ash Center output of research products that are simultaneously scholarly and actionable.

Origin

The Ash Center was established in 2004 through a gift from Roy and Lila Ash to Harvard Kennedy School. Its initial focus on democracy, innovation, and Asia expanded through subsequent expansions of programming and faculty affiliation. Fung has served as director since its founding and has shaped its research agenda around democratic innovation and institutional design.

The Center's programmatic engagement with AI accelerated after 2022 as the implications of large language models for democratic governance became apparent. The 2023 Fung-Lessig Clogger analysis represented the Center's initial major contribution to AI governance discourse; the December 2024 workshop was the first sustained multi-stakeholder engagement with AI's implications for democracy movements specifically.

Key Ideas

Democratic innovation as research program. The Center focuses on institutional innovations that extend democratic capacity beyond conventional electoral mechanisms.

Interdisciplinary engagement with governance challenges. The Center's projects combine political science, law, technology studies, and practical governance expertise.

Scholarship combined with policy engagement. The Center's outputs are simultaneously academic and actionable, bridging analysis and institutional design.

AI as democratic challenge. The Center's engagement with AI frames it not as a technical issue but as a governance question with implications for civil society capacity across regime types.