Ash Center Communiqué Fall 2014 by Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

CommuniquĂŠ

The Magazine of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Fall 2014 Volume 15

Cities Laboratories of Innovation

Letter from the Director

Communiqué Fall 2014, Volume 15

Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Harvard Kennedy School 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Thank you for picking up a copy of the Ash Center’s Communiqué. We are excited to share this newly redesigned publication with you, which has been rethought with the reader in mind. We hope you find the new layout more compelling, both aesthetically and in substance. In addition to looking and feeling like a magazine, the design and table of contents makes it easier to skim the headlines to find what’s of interest to you. We are also making better use of images to tell the stories of our faculty, fellows, students, and alumni. And, we are introducing some new segments, such as the Q+A feature (p.4), which will spotlight a conversation with a different faculty or fellow in each issue. We also have a new “Alumni in the Field” feature (p.13), which will highlight the current work of those alumni who received support from the Ash Center while they were students. It is very rewarding to reflect on the solutions these alumni are developing to solve urgent public problems. In addition, we will continue to identify two topics per issue to explore in-depth in our feature articles. As always, if you want more information about the work of the Ash Center, please visit our website at ash.harvard.edu.

617-495-0557 www.ash.harvard.edu Director Tony Saich Associate Director for Communications Daniel Harsha Editor Jessica Engelman Design forminform Photography Ryan Rodrick Bieler/Shutterstock Castka/Shutterstock Ben Danner Tom Fitzsimmons Hermosawave/iStock Stephen Kobialka Curtis Kohlhaas Ky Nguyen So Media Corp Ltd. Maisie O’Brien Tony Rinaldo Martha Stewart Cover and page 6 photography: Thomas Berrigan / www.tberrigan.com

Tony Saich Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Daewoo Professor of International Affairs Harvard Kennedy School

In this Issue FEATURES

IN THE FIELD

RESEARCH BRIEF

Q+A with Marshall Ganz

Cities: Laboratories of Innovation

Alumni in the Field Edgar Mora Altamirano

Fellows Focus Meet Our Fellows

Challenges to Democracy: Year Two

Student Focus Ash Center Supports Experiential and Research Activities for Students

On the Bookshelf

IN THE NEWS

Ash Center News and Announcements 16

Event Snapshots

Student Focus Q+A with Denise Linn, MPP â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

IN THE NEWS

Q+A with Marshall Ganz What drew you to the Ash Center? The Ash Center’s focus on revitalizing democratic institutions is directly aligned with my work and poses one of the most critical challenges today. During the last three decades, the US and other countries with long-standing democracies have seen a hollowing out in the kind of civic engagement and participation in social movements that is necessary to generate positive change. Dysfunction in the political process, increasing income inequality, and climate change pose grave threats, and mobilizing citizens to confront these challenges is incredibly important and it is what most of my life has been about. For the past several years, you’ve worked with HKS Academic Dean and Ash Center Professor Archon Fung on the Gettysburg Project. Could you describe this initiative? The name “Gettysburg Project” comes from Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address and his definition of democracy as being “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Unfortunately, it seems to be slipping away from this ideal as American politics becomes increasingly corrupted by the influence of money and special interests. The Gettysburg Project is an effort to understand the erosion of democracy in this country and to reinvigorate meaningful and consequential civic engagement. We address the question “Why is this happening?” not as a theoretical exercise, but as a practical project by partnering with a wide range of organizations that are working to enact change from MoveOn.org to Planned Parenthood to the Service Employees International Union. It’s a very practiceoriented way of combining scholarship with work that’s happening on the ground to solve problems that we’re all very concerned about.

Marshall Ganz is a senior lecturer in public policy and joined the Ash Center in June 2014. He teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, strategy, and narrative in social movements, civic associations, and politics. His newest book, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership,

What do you see as posing the greatest threats to democracy in the US today? What role do you think social movements can play in addressing those challenges? The whole democratic project is based on the promise that unequal resources can be balanced by equal voice. In the case of the US, the founding of our country was shaped by a fundamental and profound inequality, which is slavery. Our government was shaped in ways to protect this institution because the people who drafted the constitution weren’t interested in promoting change; they were interested in continuity and maintaining their own power. The result is that it’s been very hard to use government as a mechanism for change in this country. The vacuum has been filled, to some extent, by social movements beginning with the American Revolution itself, but after that with the temperance movement, the abolitionist movement, the suffrage

Organization and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement was published in 2009, earning the Michael J. Harrington Book Award of the American Political Science Association.

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movement, the populist movement, the labor movement, the women’s movement, and the civil rights movement. So there’s been a counterpoint between electoral politics and social movements because the government doesn’t respond without sufficient pressure from within the republic. President Lyndon Johnson, for example, passed some great civil rights legislation, but the Civil Rights movement had been active and making demands since 1955. In the last 30 years, the most successful movement by far has been the conservative movement and a challenge to democracy now is that there’s a relatively successful branch of this movement that doesn’t really believe in government and is in control of government. Now that’s a serious problem. And it’s not a problem of polarization; it’s a problem of dysfunction. When everybody starts saying, “government isn’t working,” then you have a legitimacy crisis and some pretty unattractive alternatives become possible. It’s a very fragile time for democracy in America, especially as things like climate change become realities. Solving these problems will require deep and broad mobilization and change brought about by social movements—it’s never come from within government. You’re going on sabbatical next semester; could you discuss what research projects you’ll be working on? There are three major projects that I’ll be working on in the upcoming year. The first is a book on organizing and the second relates to my work on public narrative and how people understand their calling in the world and derive moral capacity—both as individuals and as communities with respect to action. I’ve been teaching a class on the subject at HKS for seven years and I’ve incorporated it into the work I do all over the world, and everyone is really interested in it. I want to figure out what is at the heart of this interest and develop a framework for moral leadership and how we understand individual and collective agency. My third project is to get a handle on what’s going on politically. How do we shift the ground in some way so that we can get on a positive track to rebuilding our democratic institutions, rather than continuing to eviscerate them? How do we find a way to bring everybody back into the process and begin to make good on the promise of equal voice? How can we learn to appreciate the significance of organized power, acknowledging that organized groups of people are the foundation for any kind of successful change? C This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

IN THE NEWS

New China Public Policy Gift

The site will also include new sources of content on innovations and best practices from our international content partners in order to disseminate these ideas to a worldwide community of academics, practitioners, and innovators at all levels of government and beyond. The GIN can be found at innovations.harvard.edu.

Carnegie Fellows

The Ash Center’s Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia has received a major gift of $10 million from Dr. James D.M. Hui to establish the Hui Fund for Generating Powerful Ideas. By funding a combination of degree students, academic research, results-driven conferences, and targeted senior practitioners, the Hui Fund will build a powerful body of strategic thinkers working on issues of direct relevance to the US and Chinese policymaking communities. The Fund will prioritize collaborative research initiatives that expressly partner with institutions and individuals from China in an effort to deepen the intellectual foundation of exchange between Harvard and the region. For the Fund’s first year, the Ash Center is accepting proposals in the areas of US-China relations, administrative reform, social policy development, and the equity implications of rapid urbanization and social displacement. In addition, the Fund has a particular interest in supporting research on energy and environmental change. The goal of this effort is to produce research that will result in academic publications and policy briefs that impact the work of policymakers in the US and China.

New Government Innovators Network This fall, the Ash Center launched the newly redesigned Government Innovators Network (GIN) website. The new site features a modern look and feel, an improved user interface, and interactive tools for users to collect, save, and share innovations and connect to our network of over 20,000 innovators. The new GIN portal also hosts our Trending Now blog, which showcases expert perspectives on innovation and highlights innovations that are solving today’s public-sector challenges. Going forward, the GIN will continue to provide the most current news, cases, and research, and will present online events.

The Ash Center and the Carnegie Corporation of New York have established the Carnegie Fellowship Program, directed by Professor Tarek Masoud, to support promising Arab social scientists. The Fellowship is designed to enrich public policy research in and on the Arab world by bringing Arab scholars together with Kennedy School faculty working in such areas as transparency, institutional design, social policy, and the empirical evaluations of policy impacts. The first Carnegie fellow for the 2014– 15 academic year is Sahar Tohamy Hassanin, an independent economist working on issues related to regulatory economics, public finance, and service provision in Egypt. She earned her PhD in economics from Emory University. The second fellow, arriving for the spring semester, is Omayma Elsheniti, a PhD candidate in economics at Rutgers University. Her research work explores labor economics, economics of education, and economic development in the Middle East.

Ash Center Faculty Appointments The Ash Center is pleased to welcome Maya Sen, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, as a new affiliated faculty member. Professor Sen’s research focuses on American politics and includes statistical methods, law, and race and ethnic politics. She is the author of numerous papers, including two noteworthy studies this year on the judiciary—an examination of whether justices who have daughters cause them to rule for women’s issues and how the American Bar Association’s rankings skew against women and minority judicial nominees. "I'm thrilled to be affiliated with an institute that looks to ask and answer the most important questions faced by society today,” said Professor Sen. “I look forward to

engaging with the fellows, staff, and other faculty here at the Ash Center on these sorts of questions," she added. The Ash Center is pleased to welcome Marshall Ganz to the Center (see interview on previous page). A senior lecturer in public policy at HKS, Ganz teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, and strategy in social movements, civic associations, and politics. His most recent book, Why David Sometimes Wins: leadership, organization and strategy in the California farm worker movement, earned the Michael J. Harrington Book Award of the American Political Science Association. In addition to teaching courses in leadership, organizing, and public narrative, he supports the work of practitioners, educators, and researchers in the US and around the world that are committed to strengthening democratic leadership and the ability of organizations, movements, and institutions to respond effectively to today’s challenges. Assistant Professor Edward Cunningham, who has run the Ash Center's Asia Energy and Sustainability Initiative (AESI) for the past three years, has been tapped to head the Center's newly rechristened China Programs portfolio. Professor Cunningham, who is on leave as an assistant professor in Boston University’s Department of Earth and Environment, comments that he is “greatly excited to work with old and new colleagues at the Kennedy School, and to build upon the considerable momentum that Ash has already created in China, the US, and Asia more broadly." In his new capacity as director of China Programs, Professor Cunningham will oversee the Center’s diverse China-related activities, including the China’s Leaders in Development program, China Public Policy Fellows program, the Hui Fund for Generating Powerful Ideas, the China and Globalization program, the Shanghai Executive Public Management Training Program, the Taiwan Leadership Program, and a range of collaborations with institutions such as the State Council's Development Research Center and Tsinghua University, as well as his continuing work leading AESI. Steve Kelman, the Weatherhead Professor of Public Management at the Harvard Kennedy School, has joined the Ash Center as a faculty associate. Professor Kelman’s work focuses on the policymaking process and on improving the management of government organizations. His is the author of Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Change in Government, which was published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2005. From 1993 through 1997, Professor Kelman served as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the US Office of Management and Budget. Appropriately enough for an Ash-affiliated faculty member, Professor Kelman also has a keen amateur interest in Chinese culture and society, and is currently learning Chinese.

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Fall 2014 Communiqué

Cities Laboratories of Innovation

The future of the United States is largely an urban one, as Americans old and young flock back to cities in ever increasing numbers. For millennials, the adult ideal is no longer a house and garage in the suburbs, but a condo by the waterfront. Empty-nesters are also jettisoning their sidewalk-less neighborhoods bound by cul-de-sacs for walkability and proximity to the cultural attractions of urban areas. With this rebirth of cities, new demands are being placed on the machinery of urban governments by constituents clamoring for more effective and responsive city governance. www.ash.harvard.edu

Fall 2014 CommuniquĂŠ

While cities and urban policy has been a steady focus of the Ash Center since its inception, the Center’s work on cities has recently taken on a greater emphasis, with the launching of three new research initiatives largely focused on strengthening governance and innovation. “Cities provide the ideal laboratory for exploring,” remarked Ash Center Director Tony Saich. “No matter whether it is Hanoi or Hartford they are trying to make cities work more effectively to deliver better services for their citizens. This is where we should look for innovation.”

The Responsive City Professor Stephen Goldsmith, the director of the Innovation in American Government Program at the Ash Center, has been immersed in cities—their governance, design, and financing—almost his entire career. As a prosecutor and then mayor in Indianapolis, Goldsmith saw firsthand how government often failed to meet the most basic tasks expected of it by voters. “Simple things like making sure the roads were fixed and that different agencies of city government actually talked to one another had somehow become insurmountable problems,” said Goldsmith. As mayor, Goldsmith embraced the use of data and the technology to harness it, which allowed him to not only improve the delivery of public services throughout Indianapolis, but also won him recognition for his accessibility and willingness to reach out to the community. In the early 1990s, Goldsmith embraced a newfangled technology that allowed him to send “electronic mail” instantly and at no charge to workers employed by the city of “We tried to highlight not Indianapolis. In a 1995 interview, Goldsmith boasted that he “ha[d] simply innovative technol4,000 electronic pen pals. Every ogy, but innovative goverpolice officer, every solid waste nance solutions—those in worker, every middle manager, city government trying to can access me 24 hours a day through traditional e-mail.” break down hierarchies and While two decades later e-mail silos in order to release the may not seem like the revolutionfull potential of governary tool it once was, Goldsmith ment,” said Goldsmith. has not stopped thinking about how technology can help city governments keep improving municipal services. His newest project, The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance, is the latest examination of how data is transforming our cities. The Responsive City, coauthored by Goldsmith and Susan Crawford, the John A. Reilly Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property at Harvard Law School and a former advisor to President Obama on technology and innovation policy, is in many ways a guide to civic engagement and governance issues. It looks at how technology innovations can be melded with community input to create what the authors term "responsive cities." “I wanted this book to be a guide for mayors,

technologists, and innovators across the country to see how cities could be transformed to meet the needs of their constituents,” said Goldsmith. Goldsmith and Crawford’s work is more than a snapshot of nifty civic apps and hacks, but instead argues that even the best advances in data analytics will have little practical impact on city residents absent meaningful leadership at city hall. “We tried to highlight not simply innovative technology, but innovative governance solutions—those in city government trying to break down hierarchies and silos in order to release the full potential of government,” said Goldsmith. “In many ways the technology is a means to an end to enable better governance in our cities,” added Goldsmith. “This abundance of data is the catalyst for scrapping century-old methods of governing our cities, which resulted in stifling bureaucracy and poor city services, and instead allowing a culture of transparency and accountability to arise from the ashes.”

PerformanceStat While New York City may have given birth to what has become known as the PerformanceStat movement when the model for the NYPD’s CompStat strategy was developed on the back of a cocktail napkin, it was Baltimore that caught Hollywood’s attention. More precisely, it was David Simon's depiction of CompStat in Baltimore, as seen in the critically acclaimed HBO series, The Wire. Created by a former Baltimore Sun reporter, The Wire regularly depicted CompStat meetings with fictional police commanders berated by their superiors for their crime-control failures. Bob Behn, a senior lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a faculty affiliate of the Ash Center, has followed the trajectory of what he coined “PerformanceStat” from its very beginnings in New York to a management technique practiced at all levels of government across the US. His new book, The PerformanceStat Potential: A Leadership Strategy for Producing Results, examines how cities and agencies combine management leadership techniques with data analysis to monitor and improve public services. The book was published jointly this year by the Brookings Institution Press and the Ash Center as part of the Innovative Governance in the 21st Century book series. The PerformanceStat Potential, nearly a decade in the making, is the most comprehensive study of the PerformanceStat movement to date, examining its origins in New York and with Baltimore’s CitiStat and later on to dozens more cities, states, and federal agencies. This leadership strategy has been credited with helping to reverse crime trends in New York to wringing tens of millions of dollars in efficiencies from city government in Baltimore and fixing potholes faster in Somerville, Massachusetts. While Behn grimaces at David Simon’s less than flattering (and highly embellished) portrayal of CompStat, Behn argues that Baltimore has benefitted tremendously from its PerformanceStat leadership strategy. Martin O’Malley (then mayor of Baltimore), taking lessons from New York’s then and current police commissioner Bill Bratton, established a citywide PerformanceStat program that he coined CitiStat. The program has since saved the city millions of dollars

FAR LEFT Professor Stephen Goldsmith, Director of the Innovations in American Government Program CENTER The Responsive City (2014) LEFT Susan Crawford, the John A. Reilly Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property, Harvard Law School

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LEFT Bob Behn, Senior Lecturer, HKS RIGHT Jorrit de Jong, Lecturer, HKS FAR RIGHT Mayor Joseph Curtatone, Somerville, Massachusetts

in the delivery of government services. O’Malley’s successors in city hall continue to tout CitiStat as a key to improving the responsiveness of city government. In Charm City under Mayor Martin O’Malley, Behn argues that the CitiStat program got “people to pay a lot of attention to what he [O’Malley] wanted Successful programs, acto accomplish.” Not all PerformanceStat procording to Behn, require grams, however, are created strong leadership and an exequally. Successful programs, acceptional time commitment cording to Behn, require strong from a city or government leadership and an exceptional time commitment from a city or agency’s chief executive — government agency’s chief execsomething that is often in utive—something that is often in short supply. short supply. “If you want people to pay attention, then you have to signal its importance by spending your time on it,” says Behn. Some mayors and department heads such as O’Malley and Bratton dedicated the time and resources to embrace PerformanceStat as a leadership strategy. Others, after realizing the time commitment involved in running a successful PerformanceStat program, have shied away from implementing robust citywide strategies on the scale of Baltimore or Somerville. As far as PerformanceStat’s future as a management system, Behn is convinced that it will be a permanent feature in many city halls across the country: “It doesn’t go away once you make it useful. If you are a mayor, you can’t dismiss your inability to accomplish results.”

Innovation Field Lab Across Boston, countless young sleep-deprived doctors are making rounds as part of their medical residencies. It’s a rite of passage for young doctors, who take their medical knowledge acquired in the classroom and apply it under the supervision of senior medical staff. At HKS, senior faculty were asking themselves if medical students need formalized on-the-job training before they can practice independently, shouldn’t a public policy school make sure its students have similar field experience in government before they graduate? From that idea was born the Ash Innovation Field Lab, the Harvard Kennedy School’s newest experiential learning program. “Students are increasingly eager to roll up their sleeves and engage in learning by doing. The Ash Center aims to promote innovation in democratic governance, so it just made sense to put the two together,” said HKS lecturer Jorrit de Jong, who is also the academic director of the Ash Center’s Innovations in Government Program. To launch this initiative, the Ash Center turned to Joseph Curtatone, mayor of Somerville and an Ash Center Innovations Senior Visiting Fellow, to help design an experiential learning program that would allow the Center to partner

with three small- to medium-sized cities in Massachusetts to implement innovative government solutions. “Somerville has seen an incredible journey of innovation under the leadership of Mayor Curtatone,” said de Jong. That track record of innovation has been the envy of mayors throughout the country—many of whom have traveled to Somerville to witness firsthand how the city of nearly 80,000 has embraced data as a critical governance tool. No stranger to HKS, Curtatone is himself an alum of the midcareer MPA program and had also previously partnered with Professor Linda Bilmes, an HKS senior lecturer in public policy, to revamp Somerville’s budget and accounting mechanisms. Curtatone has played a leadership role in helping the Ash Center identify potential field lab partner cities and in developing a research and learning curriculum for the program. As it is currently structured, the field lab will allow faculty to conduct firsthand research on innovation and students to gain hands-on experience implementing innovative government programs directly at the municipal level. Curtatone is a vocal champion of data as an integral tool of government, particularly for cities the size of Somerville. “Small- and medium-sized cities have the opportunity to do a lot more with a lot less,” said Curtatone during a recent webinar on performance management. Calling data an “equalizer for cities,” Curtatone helped convince Lawrence, Massachusetts to be the first city to forge an agreement with the Ash Center to collaborate with the Innovation Field Lab. Fitchburg and Chelsea have also signed onto the program. In the coming months, de Jong and his colleague at the Ash Center, Assistant Professor Quinton Mayne, will be working to finalize the Innovation Field Lab research curriculum and preparing students to start working on “We are reinventing the way developing and implementing innovative government programs. that the academy teaches Students will be engaged in three public policy,” said Center primary tasks: diagnosing the Director Tony Saich. “In a challenges faced by each city, few years, I hope the proidentifying possible solutions from around the country and the gram isn’t viewed as experiglobe, and facilitating the process mental, but seen as a core of adaptation and implementacomponent of a Kennedy tion. The Ash Center team is School education.” currently working with Mayor Curtatone to identify a specific challenge shared by the three cities for HKS students to tackle in the two Field Lab class modules to be taught this spring. “We are reinventing the way that the academy teaches public policy,” said Center Director Tony Saich. “In a few years, I hope the program isn’t viewed as experimental, but seen as a core component of a Kennedy School education.” C

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Challenges to Democracy ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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ABOVE The Responsive City audience (left) Stephen Goldsmith (right)

Year Two ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ In September 2013, in honor of its tenth anniversary, the Ash Center launched Challenges to Democracy, a public dialogue series on the greatest threats and most promising solutions to our democratic form of government. Now entering its second year, the series has attracted some of the country's leaders in thought and in practice—from scholars and policymakers to public intellectuals, journalists, and artists—to broaden and deepen public dialogue around what Ash Center founder Roy Ash called the “fragile institution of democracy.” The goal of the two-year series is not simply to name the greatest challenges our democracy faces today, but to put forward and give due attention to the promising solutions we need. Ash Center Director and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs Tony Saich, along with Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship Archon Fung, are leading the anniversary series. Also playing key roles are faculty members Alex Keyssar, Quinton Mayne, and Marshall Ganz, as well as young researchers—Ash Center Democracy Fellows—working on the frontiers of scholarship in democratic theory and practice. Challenges to Democracy commenced in October 2103 with a standing roomonly JFK Jr. Forum event featuring a panel discussion moderated by radio host Tom Ashbrook of WBUR on the threat economic inequality poses to the health of American democracy. Other notable events over the year included a screening and discussion with Errol Morris of his documentary on Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known. The Center collaborated with two student groups on a unique study group that focused on Cities, Technology and Democracy and a #tech4democracy panel discussion, also organized with Harvard i-Lab, which was popular across campus and among the local tech community. The Center also partnered with Lawrence CommunityWorks and the Office of the Mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, to host a town hall-type discussion on immigrant integration in Lawrence that attracted 250 community members. In all, the Center hosted 19 events in the first year of the series, reaching over 1,000 attendees including 370 people through off-campus events. We hope you will join us for what promises to be an equally compelling second year of the Challenges to Democracy series. A new set of themes will include the future of social movements, realizing the democratic potential of cities, and the 50-year anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. This fall, the Center hosted two book talks: one with Hahrie Han of Wellesley University on her new book How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century; and another with the Ash Center’s Steve

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TOP

NPR Host Tom Ashbrook (right) discusses "Inequality vs. Democracy" with

The Responsive City panelists: Tony Saich, Stephen Goldsmith, Susan

panelists Chrystia Freeland, Professor Martin Gilens, and Professor Keyssar

Crawford, and Bill Oates

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“Integrating Immigrant Communities into Civic and Political Life”

Marshall Ganz speaks at "How Organizations Develop Activists" event

panelists: Archon Fung, Sister Eileen Burns, Asma Khalid, Jessica Andors, Eliana Martinez, and Zoila Gomez

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Goldsmith and Susan Crawford (Harvard Law School) on their new title The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance. Year two of the series will also include a JFK Jr. Forum event featuring nationally recognized civil rights leaders with HKS Professor Alex Keyssar on what has and has not changed over the 50 years since the passing of the Voting Rights Act. The Center will continue to partner with media, cultural institutions and community organizations to reach beyond traditional academic audiences. The Center is again working with the American Repertory Theater on a post-performance discussion of The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler’s new play “O.P.C.” about consumption and politics. The Center is also in talks with the newly renovated Fogg Art Museum. In November, the Center hosted a panel discussion on new documentary films about urban politics and life including The Atlanta Way, directed by King Williams, and El Barrio Tours: Gentrification USA, created by Andrew Padilla. The Center is also working with the city of Boston on a youth-oriented event that builds on our ongoing support of its first-in-the-nation youth participatory budgeting initiative and with Harvard Law School faculty and Climenko Fellow Maggie McKinley to host two hackathons, one in Cambridge and one in Washington, DC,

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that will encourage the development of much-needed tech platforms to improve lawmaking, deliberation, and representation in legislatures. This year the Center is also pleased to offer a special Innovations in American Government Award for programs and initiatives that focus on public engagement and participation in conjunction with our Challenges to Democracy series. The winner of the Roy and Lila Ash Innovations Award for Public Engagement in Government, which is designed to recognize government-led innovations that demonstrate enhanced public engagement and participation in the governance of towns, cities, states, and the nation, will receive a $100,000 grant to support dissemination activities. Throughout the series, a blog and newsletter has captured the best stories, ideas, and lessons of each event. The blog is also highlighting innovations and other relevant news to the themes explored in the series by sharing the cuttingedge research coming from affiliated faculty and fellows, as well as welcoming guest posts from students and alumni. In its first twelve months, the Center published 85 posts to the blog and garnered over 10,000 unique page views. In addition, our Challenges to Democracy newsletter regularly reaches over 1,600 recipients. Please visit ash.harvard.edu for more information. C

IN THE FIELD

Alumni in the Field Congress for the New Urbanism Recognizes Ash Fellow Edgar Mora Altamirano

Located in Costa Rica’s lush Central Valley on the border of San José, Curridabat boasts 360-degree mountain views, vibrant commercial areas, and a solid middle class, making it a desirable destination for tourists and families alike. This city of 70,000 people has recently received additional recognition for its strong civic leadership and innovative approach to charting its future. In June 2014, Curridabat was awarded Best City Plan by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), the leading organization promoting walkable, mixed-use neighborhood development and sustainable communities. Curridabat’s mayor, Edgar Mora Altamirano, drafted the plan shortly before taking a one-year leave of absence to pursue an MPA degree at the Harvard Kennedy School while also receiving a Roy and Lila Ash Fellowship at the Ash Center. Describing their awards decision, the CNU committee wrote, “Mayor Edgar Mora Altamirano and

“Mayor Edgar Mora Altamirano and the local government have become unusually engaged in city building and creating community. The result is a forward-thinking initiative to harness sprawl and revitalize lackluster architecture in a growing community that desperately needs it.” — Congress for the New

the local government have become unusually engaged in city building and creating community. The result is a forward-thinking initiative to harness sprawl and revitalize lackluster architecture in a growing community that desperately needs it.” Mora's plan outlines his vision to increase walkability and usability, decrease congestion and aimless suburban sprawl, and promote environmentally conscious architecture. It calls for several major roads to be transformed into safer corridors and bike paths, as well as for the construction of more mixed-use housing to account for the prevalence of private spaces that function as both homes and businesses. The CNU committee praised not only the design of the plan, but also the way in which Mora and his colleagues involved the local community in crafting it. “We embraced the idea of the people being codesigners,” said Mora, who ran a series of urban planning workshops for Curridabat residents. “At first, involving the community may seem like a way to risk losing authority and we didn’t know how prepared they would be for the very technical task of designing a city. But what we learned is that citizens, as very intensive users of the city, know very well what is working and what is not.” The workshops were dynamic and well-attended, and provided Mora with a clear understanding of what Curridabat residents wanted from their city— walkable, bikeable neighborhoods with more affordable housing and a smaller carbon footprint. The plan is currently in the first stages of implementation with several green-building projects slated for the upcoming year. Mora’s long-term strategy is to update the plan on a biannual basis using citizens’ feedback and a survey he created called the Atlas of Sociality. Developed during Mora’s time at the Ash Center, the survey connects residents’ experiences, overall wellbeing, and sense of community to their physical place. Mora graduated from HKS this past spring and returned to Curridabat to resume his post as mayor, though he continues to be involved with the Ash Center. He is part of a group of students and alumni led by Ash Center Professor Mayne studying how urban design can impact civic participation and strengthen democracy. Curridabat will serve as a test case for new ideas and initiatives brought forth by the group. Reflecting on his time at HKS, Mora says: “I came to Harvard to be a thinker as well as an operator. I was interested in theory and power, urban planning and civic participation, and I found what I was looking for through my classes and activities sponsored by the Ash Center. I discovered that my passion is for cities and the beautiful task of shaping their character.” C

Urbanism www.ash.harvard.edu

Fall 2014 Communiqué

IN THE FIELD

Student Focus Ash Center Supports Experiential and Research Activities for Students The Ash Center is committed to encouraging careers in the public sector, providing opportunities for students to explore in greater depth the topics and questions of most interest to them, and strengthening the connection between students and faculty affiliated with the Center. This past summer, the Center supported 21 students with research and hands-on work opportunities. Ash Center Summer Fellowships Since 2008, the Center has been placing students in summer fellowships with some of the most creative and effective public officials and policy advisors in the country, not only to learn but to add value by sharing cutting-edge trends and ideas explored at HKS. This summer, seven HKS students and one GSD student were hosted by public-sector and nonprofit partner agencies: Chloe Christman, MPP '14: Mayor of Chicago. Maura Fitzgerald, MPP '15: New Orleans. Tara Grillos, PhD candidate: City of Boston. Jessica Huey, MPP '15: US General Services Administration, Challenge.gov.

Victoria Kabak, MPP '15: Center for Economic Opportunity, New York City. Denise Linn, MPP '15: Gig.U. Andrew Snyder, MPP '15: Department of Community Works, Housing, and Transit, Hennepin County, Minnesota. Lindsay Woodson, MDesS '15 (at GSD): Los Angeles Mayor's Office of Homeland Security and Public Safety. Vietnam Program Internships The Vietnam Program invites first-year MPP, MPA, or MPA/ID students to intern at the Fulbright School, a center for public policy research in Ho Chi Minh City. Jennifer Hatch, MPP’15: environmental policy challenges confronting countries in Lower Mekong region.

TOP ROW (left to right) Matthew Teisman; Jessica Huey BOTTOM ROW (left to right) Andrew Snyder; Lindsay Woodson with Mayor Garcetti; Chloe Christman; Maura Fitzgerald

Communiqué Fall 2014

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Taehoon Im, MPP’15: forms and impact of foreign direct investment in Vietnam, with a particular focus on Korean investment. Tam An Luong, Tufts University '16: study on the informal economy of motorcycle taxis in Ho Chi Minh City and its impact on urban congestion. Also worked jointly with Jennifer Hatch (above). Quynh-Nhu Le, Harvard College '17: advocacy activities of the Vietnamese Bar Federation and the Vietnamese Law Association as part of a larger inquiry into the role of lawyers in Vietnam. China Public Policy Program Student Research Grants The China Public Policy Program financially supports Harvard University students pursuing China-related internships, independent research, and other forms of study conducted in China. Ruixi Hao, MPP '15: SEE Foundation in Mongolia. HKS Indonesia Program Student Research Grants The HKS Indonesia Program offers student research grants to Harvard University students to support independent research or other forms of

study conducted in Indonesia. Johannes Ardiant, MPP ’15: Decentralization in Indonesia: Why Some New Regencies are Performing Better than Others, and How the Dynamic behind Their Creation Impacts Performance. Nan Chen, MPP '15: Millennium Challenge Corporation. Heidi Cho, GSD ‘14: internship with PATTIRO, strengthening research and knowledge management. Pramoda Dei Sudarmo, MPA ’15: The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Poverty Reduction: Case studies of Indonesian social enterprises that have moved the needles in reducing poverty through wealth creation. Phillips Loh, HSPH '15: Poverty and social protection cluster: targeting poor households with statistical methods. Indrani Saran, HSPH ’16: Descriptive Social Norms and Women’s Participation in Community Decision-Making Meetings in Indonesia. Seth Soderborg, PhD candidate, FAS Government Department: Local Institutional Persistence in Democratic Indonesia. Matthew Teismann, GSD ’15: (Architecture) Without Origins: Social and Cultural Estrangement in Post-Colonial Medan.

IN THE FIELD

Student Focus Q+A with Denise Linn, MPP '15 Q: You received an Ash Center student fellowship this past summer to work for Gig.U, a consortium of research universities working to deploy ultrahigh-speed Internet networks to their communities. How did you get interested in municipal broadband issues? It’s not exactly the hottest tech issue out there at the moment. I first encountered this policy area as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer working on broadband access and adoption programs in North Carolina. In 2011, the state legislature passed a controversial bill to inhibit municipal governments from creating public broadband networks. This struck me as unjust—not only because of the work I was involved with, but because North Carolina cities like Wilson had already proven that such networks can be successful in cases when the private sector wasn’t interested in upgrading. Municipal broadband might not be making national headlines on a consistent basis, but I don’t think that means it’s esoteric. Rather, I would argue that it’s a high stakes question that hits the country community by community. Ask a young tech entrepreneur in Huntsville, Alabama, or a librarian in Chattanooga, Tennessee, how much better, faster, cheaper broadband access means to their jobs and the future of their city. As we start to see more telemedicine, distance learning opportunities, and exclusively online government services, the Internet shifts from luxury to necessity. Q: Are cities starting to realize that the state of its broadband infrastructure is as critical to growth as say the state of their roads and public transportation? Yes, definitely. There is so much excitement now about city governments being hubs of innovative policy and leadership. Though questions of Internet access and speed have traditionally been viewed as a private-sector problem, city governments are adopting both dramatic and incremental strategies to take ownership over this issue area. From implementing simple regulatory reforms to attracting outside investment all the way to building and running a fiber optic network, local leaders are making telecommunications infrastructure the purview of public policy. Like other essential city services, broadband makes 21st-century life run smoothly. Q: Whatever happened to this utopian idea of free or nearly free public wireless networks in major American cities? San Francisco was working on one, as was Philadelphia. Were there technological hurdles, political hurdles, or both? It’s actually happening, but due to some high profile failures a few years back, cities are starting slow and smart when it comes to Wi-Fi initiatives. Boston just

Ash Summer Fellow Denise

announced their “Wicked Free Wi-Fi” project earlier in 2014, which is actually supported by the city’s own fiber network. San Francisco and San Jose formed a partnership using the technology Hotspot 2.0 to give citizens “seamless switching” between the cities’ various free networks. Wilmington, North Carolina, was deemed an FCC-approved experimental TV White Spaces City. Then, this summer, New York announced a new project in partnership with Google that would turn every payphone in the city into a Wi-Fi hotspot. Each of these projects is scalable, but none creates the community expectation that a utopian blanket of free wireless access should exist. Also, at the end of the day, most Wi-Fi projects need a fiber backbone to work anyway. Traditional Wi-Fi projects are targeted, supplementary services in public spaces, but in the long term they cannot close the digital divide or replace the business class connections that startups, research institutions, and established companies truly need. In other words, Wi-Fi alone is unlikely to holistically meet a city’s long-term, next generation telecommunications needs. Q: Can you tell us a little but more about the organization you worked with, Gig.U? Gig.U began in 2011 shortly after the initial Google Fiber competition. The organization consists of three dozen research universities sharing knowledge and best practices for accelerating the deployment of next generation broadband networks in their com-

Linn discusses innovative public policy, municipal broadband, and her internship at Gig. U, a consortium of research universities working to deploy ultrahigh-speed Internet in communities across the country.

munities. Three years later, many Gig.U communities like Blacksburg, Urbana-Champaign, and East Lansing have become gigabit test beds, successfully experimenting with new models for deployment and new types of public-private initiatives. Q: What sort of student support did the Ash Center provide to you? The Ash Center has been great to work with. Not only did they fund my summer project, but they also encouraged me to be entrepreneurial. As far as I know, not many students have done work like this before, so having the Ash Center in my corner investing in me and supporting me was invaluable. The Center connected me with city leaders, media outlets, and a community of like-minded peers in the fellowship program—everything I needed to enrich my summer experience. C This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Fall 2014 Communiqué

IN THE NEWS

Event Snapshots Asia Public Policy Forum June 5–6, 2014 The Asia Public Policy Forum is an annual event that brings together scholars, policymakers, and leaders from business and civil society to discuss an issue of rising importance in the region. The objective of the Forum is to promote interaction among such leading thinkers as a means of stimulating policy innovation and information sharing related to an issue of public concern. This year’s Asia Public Policy Forum focused on “Urban Transportation and Land Use in Rapidly Growing Asian Cities” and was held in Vietnam. The Forum, sponsored by the Ash Center’s HKS Indonesia Program and cohosted with the Fulbright School in Ho Chi Minh City, convened central and local government leaders, city planners and officials from transportation agencies, private sector managers, and scholars from the United States, Southeast and East Asia to discuss trends in urban transportation and land use and their implications for congestion and sustainability. In all, there were 130 participants from 15 countries. Speakers included Dr. Bambang Susantono (Vice Minister of Transportation, Indonesia), who spoke about challenges and pressures of urbanization in the greater Jakarta region and offered potential solutions, including BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) and rail-based public transport; Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thanh (Director, Fulbright School), who introduced Ho Chi Minh City and its four big urban development challenges (transportation, housing, flooding, and urban finance); and Dr. Jose Antonio Gomez-Ibanez (Derek C. Bok Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, Harvard University), who provided a summary analysis of the difficulties experienced by Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, and Jakarta. Outputs from the Forum include conference proceedings, which are available through the Ash Center’s website.

Robert Cervero (University of California at Berkeley) presents at the 2014 Asia Public Policy Forum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

China’s Leaders in Development August 18–September 21, 2014 Twenty-five senior Chinese officials from the central government, provinces, and major cities focused intensively on the dilemmas of rapid urban growth and development in the 12th iteration of the China’s Leaders in Development (CLD) executive education program. The program was held in Beijing in August and at the Kennedy School in September and is chaired by Tony Saich, director of the Ash Center. While in Cambridge, participants attended sessions with 21 Harvard faculty for two weeks. Topics included American urbanization in international perspective, urban design patterns, urban service delivery, infrastructure finance, emergency management, transparency and community participation, health care reform, global education, and government and entrepreneurship. Participants also made a number of site visits in the Boston area to learn about both elderly housing options and performance management in the Somerville and Cambridge city governments. To develop and sustain the program, the Center works closely with its academic partner, Tsinghua University’s School of Public Policy and Management, as well as with CLD’s government and party sponsors, the Development Research Center of the State Council and the central Organization Department. CLD has been generously supported since its inception in 2001 by Amway (China) Co.

Carter Center Forum September 4, 2014 This September, the Ash Center was honored to support an event in Beijing together with the Carter Center and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. The forum marked the 35th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing. In attendance were former President Jimmy Carter; Vice President Li Yuanchao; Ash Center Director Tony Saich;

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2014 China’s Leaders in Development Program participants

and Professor Edward Cunningham, director of China Programs at the Ash Center; as well as numerous leaders from other academic institutions, governments, and the nonprofit and private sectors. In Beijing, President Carter stressed the common interests of the United States and China, particularly in regard to climate change cooperation. Panels were devoted to the state of US-China relations in the areas of finance, trade, energy and the environment, and philanthropy.

Project on Municipal Innovation Advisory Group September 4–6, 2014 The Project on Municipal Innovation Advisory Group (PMI-AG) met for the 12th time at the School in September. PMI-AG is comprised of chiefs of staff, deputy mayors, and policy directors from the country’s largest and most creative cities. Funded through Living Cities, the goal of this network is to enhance the quality of urban life by connecting city hall leaders to innovative ideas, and then supporting the replication and implementation of those ideas. PMI-AG convenes two in-person meetings each year and engages in other discussions throughout the year. The theme of the September meeting was “Competitive Cities, Ensuring Growth and Equity.” Cass Sunstein, Harvard Business School professor and bestselling author of Nudge, provided the keynote address. During the working sessions, PMI-AG cities were joined by national policy experts, including Harvard Kennedy School Professors Ed Glaeser and Marshall Ganz, to discuss “Strategies for Developing and Maintaining Affordable Housing,” “Models for Growing New

IN THE NEWS

Sectors Supporting Inclusionary Job Creation,” and “Developing Public Narrative in Local Government.” The meeting concluded with representatives learning about three unique technical assistance and partnership opportunities with national organizations.

How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations in the 21st Century

Ash Center Director Tony Saich greets President Jimmy Carter and Vice President of China Li Yuanchao at the Carter Forum in Beijing

September 24, 2014 This fall, the Ash Center hosted a book talk on “How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations in the 21st Century” with author Hahrie Han as part of the ongoing Challenges to Democracy public dialogue series. An associate professor of political science at Wellesley College, Han is studying why some civic associations are better than others at getting—and keeping—people involved in activism. She was joined by Sarah Hodgdon, national program director of the Sierra Club, and HKS Professor Jane Mansbridge. The talk was moderated by Professor Archon Fung, HKS academic dean, and explored Han’s research using inperson observations, surveys, and field experiments to compare organizations with strong records of engaging people in health and environmental politics to those with weaker records. To build power, Han found, civic associations need quality and quantity (or depth and breadth) of activism. They need lots of people to take action and also a cadre of leaders to develop and execute that activity. The panelists discussed how the rise in digital technology presents new challenges and opportunities for activist organizations to transform their members’ motivations and capacity for involvement.

Workshop on Immigration, Race and Ethnicity

The Project on Municipal Innovation Advisory Group convenes at Harvard Kennedy School

October 2, 2014 This fall, the Center launched the Workshop on Immigration, Race and Ethnicity series, which brings together researchers and students in a bimonthly seminar to discuss recent research trends and academic findings in the field. The series was developed by Jason Anastasopoulos, a democracy fellow at the Ash Center whose research focuses on polarization, immigration, and democratic participation. For the fall semester of 2014, the workshops explored such diverse issues as experiments on race, immigration, and public policy; economic impacts of immigration and immigration policy; and ethics of immigration and immigration policy. On October 2, 2014, as part of the workshop series, Assistant Professor Maya Sen, an Ash Center faculty affiliate, presented a paper she had co-authored entitled “The Political Legacy of American Slavery.” Professor Sen discussed how whites who currently live in Southern counties that had high shares of slaves in 1860 are more likely to identify as Republicans, oppose affirmative action policies, and express racial resentment toward blacks.

Ambassador Robert Ford

(Left to right) HKS Professor Jane Mansbridge, HKS Academic Dean and Professor Archon Fung, Sierra Club National Program Director Sarah Hodgdon, and Wellesley College Professor Hahrie Han discuss civic associations and leadership at a talk on Han’s new book How Organizations Develop Activists

October 29, 2014 Robert Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria during much of the post-Arab Spring violence that has gripped Syria, discussed the challenges of democracy in the Middle East as part of an event sponsored jointly by the Ash Center and the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative. Ford, who retired from the State Department in February, has become a vocal critic of the Obama Administration’s policy in Syria, saying in an interview earlier this year that “the measures we have taken have been, in most cases, too little and too late.” The event was moderated by Ford’s former State Department colleague and current HKS professor of diplomacy and international politics, Nick Burns, and came on the heels of significantly increased US efforts to arm the moderate opposition in Syria.

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Fall 2014 Communiqué

RESEARCH BRIEF

China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellowships The Ash Center offers two postdoctoral fellowships in the field of contemporary Chinese public policy to recent PhDs of exceptional promise.

Fellows Focus Meet Our Fellows

Ford Foundation Mason Fellows The Ford Foundation Mason Fellowships are awarded to meritorious midcareer students with financial need and a demonstrated interest in the overarching issues of concern to the Ash Center to study at HKS for an intensive, one-year master’s degree in public administration. The Center is sponsoring the following students for this academic year: Emebet Kebede Cherenet, MC-Mason ’15, from Ethiopia Alvaro Henzler, MC-Mason ’15, from Peru Carolyne Khagondi, MC-Mason ’15, from Kenya Sanjay Kumar, MC-Mason ’15, from India Roy and Lila Ash Fellow The Roy and Lila Ash Fellowship in Democracy supports students with a strong interest in the broad questions of democratic governance, a capacity for leadership, a commitment to search and inquiry, and a dedication to advancements in social justice and service to citizens around the world. This year’s Roy and Lila Ash Fellow is Georgia Hollister Isman, MC-MPA ’15, who most recently served as the executive director of Mass Alliance, a statewide coalition of progressive political and advocacy organizations in Massachusetts. Democracy Fellowships The Ash Center’s Democracy Fellowships support predoctoral and postdoctoral scholars as well as practitioners in research areas related to democratic governance. This year, the following seven new Democracy Fellows joined the Center: Emily Clough, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University John Dryzek, Centenary Professor in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the ANZSOG Institute for Governance, University of Canberra, Australia Claire Dunning, PhD Candidate, Department of History, Harvard University

Communiqué Fall 2014

Yanilda González, PhD in Politics and Social Policy, Princeton University Tara Grillos, PhD candidate in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School Maija Karjalainen, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Turku, Finland Jonathan Rinne, PhD Candidate, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany Carnegie Fellowship Through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Center will support promising Arab social scientists beginning in the fall of 2014. The Carnegie scholars will explore possible options for effective governance across a range of policy domains in this dangerously troubled part of the world. The Center's first Carnegie Fellow is Sahar Tohamy Hassanin, director of programs at the Egyptian Network for Integrated Development. HKS Indonesia Program Fellows The HKS Indonesia Program offers fellowships to support Indonesian students enrolled at Harvard Kennedy School. This year’s three new HKS Indonesia Program Fellows are:

Dominggus Elcid Li, PhD in Sociology, University of Birmingham, UK Akhmad Sahal, PhD Candidate, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania China Public Policy Student Fellows The China and Globalization Program Fellowship is awarded each year to Mason Fellows from China with financial need. Candidates must demonstrate a strong interest in the areas of domestic politics and social development of China, with a focus on public policy challenges.

David Bulman, PhD in China Studies, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University Kyle Jaros, PhD in Government, Harvard University

Peiran Wei, MC-Mason ’15 Rosie Zhang, MC-Mason ’15 David Zou, MC-Mason ’15

Rajawali Fellows The Rajawali Fellows Program allows predoctoral and postdoctoral scholars as well as practitioners the freedom to pursue independent research projects on public policy issues related to Asia, with the help of the Ash Center’s Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia and other Harvard resources. The Center welcomed 27 new Rajawali Fellows this fall. For a complete listing of this year’s Rajawali Fellows, please visit http://bit.ly/Hm0zPL.

Emily Clough

John Dryzek

Claire Dunning

Yanilda Gonzalez

Tara Grillos

Maija Karjalainen

Panji Hadisoemarto

Dominggus Elcid Li

Akhmad Sahal

David Bulman

Kyle Jaros

Ling Chen

Eben Forbes

Christy Hui

Joongsuk Park

Yuan Zhao

Adamas Devara, MPP ’16 Amri Ilmma, MPA/ID ’16 Rivandra Royono, MPA/ID ’16 Indonesia Research Fellowship The Ash Center’s Harvard Kennedy School Indonesia Program offers fellowships to support Indonesian students, scholars, and practitioners conducting research on public policy issues related to Indonesia. The following five Indonesia Fellows joined the Center this fall: Tommy Firman, Professor of Regional and City Planning, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia Panji Hadisoemarto, PhD Candidate, Harvard School of Public Health Dian Kusuma, PhD Candidate, Harvard School of Public Health

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RESEARCH BRIEF

On the Bookshelf

Counting Islam Tarek Masoud Cambridge University Press, 2014 In April of this year, Professor Tarek Masoud, an Ash Center faculty affiliate, published Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt. His book asks why Islam seems to dominate Egyptian politics, especially when the country's endemic poverty and deep economic inequality would seem to render it promising terrain for a politics of radical redistribution rather than one of religious conservativism. The book argues that the answer lies not in the political unsophistication of voters, the subordination of economic interests to spiritual ones, or the ineptitude of secular and leftist politicians, but in organizational and social factors that shape the opportunities of parties in authoritarian and democratizing systems to reach potential voters. Tracing the Muslim Brotherhood's electoral victories and the secular left's losses over the course of nearly forty years, this book argues that the party system that emerged in transitional Egypt reflected not the structure of basic conflict in that society, but the structure of political opportunities that allowed Is-

lamists to better convince voters of their superiority not in matters of faith, but rather in their ability and willingness to use their power to deliver more worldly benefits. They would eventually prove unable to deliver on this promise, with disastrous results. This book is about more than why Islamists triumphed in elections, however. In the course of explaining Islam's (fleeting) victories, it explores the possibilities for the kind of political pluralism that is at the heart of what we expect from democracy. And although the majority of the empirical terrain covered by this book is located in Egypt, the answers this study generates are ones that will have resonances far beyond the banks of the Nile.

Philanthropy for Health in China Tony Saich, Jennifer Ryan, and Lincoln C. Chen, editors, Indiana University Press, 2014 There is considerable excitement over two recent developments in global philanthropy—the prospect of an explosive growth of new philanthropy in China and the promise of social impact through investing in global health. China's spectacular economic growth to become the world's second-largest economy has been accompanied by enormous accumulation of private wealth. This wealth has the potential to launch a new and exciting era in private philanthropy. Drawing on the expertise of Chinese and Western academics and practitioners, the contributors to this volume aim to advance the understanding of philanthropy for health in China in the 20th century and to identify future challenges and opportunities. Considering government, NGO leaders, domestic philanthropists, and foreign foundations, the volume examines the historical roots and distinct stages of philanthropy and charity in China, the health challenges philanthropy must address, and the role of the Chinese government, including its support for Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations. The editors discuss strategies and practices of

international philanthropy for health, the role of philanthropy in China’s evolving health system, and the prospects for philanthropy in a country beginning to engage with civil society. As the editors note in the introduction, philanthropy in China is being spurred both by the rapid accumulation and diffusion of wealth in the country and the emergence and proliferation of NGOs. A focus on health has taken hold in China’s philanthropic community in the wake of major philanthropic investments focused on global health by organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bloomberg Foundation. Further, because the health sector in China has been long-neglected, the editors argue that “China’s health system would seem especially ripe for the innovation and experimentation that private philanthropy is uniquely equipped to offer.”

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Fall 2014 Communiqué

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