Ash Center Communiqué Spring 2016

Spring 2016 Volume 18Communiqué The Magazine of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

CHINA GIVES: The Ash Center Surveys China’sPhilanthropic Landscape

Welcome to the 18th issue of the Ash Center’s Communiqué magazine, whichtouches on just some of the important work of those engaged with the Center.In this issue, we explore the findings of our new China Philanthropy Project,which is an attempt to shift the debate away from a focus on absolute wealthand towards bigger questions around generosity (p. 6). In our Q+A this issue (p. 2),we talk with Quinton Mayne, assistant professor of public policy, about his workon the politics of urban areas and the challenge of affordable housing. We arealso excited to share our analysis of the first five years of our Democracy Fel-lowships Program (p. 8), which highlights the unique intellectual community cre-ated at the Ash Center. And, on p. 10, you will meet Jayant Kairam MPP 2010who is working across sectors to combat climate change and strengthen com-munities.

There is much more to be found in this issue and I hope you will enjoyexploring the work of our students, alumni, and scholars as they strive to makea difference. As always, you can find more information about the work of theAsh Center on our website at ash.harvard.edu.

Tony SaichDirector, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and InnovationDaewoo Professor of International AffairsHarvard Kennedy School

Letter from the DirectorCommuniquéSpring 2016, Volume 18

Ash Center for Democratic Governanceand InnovationHarvard Kennedy School 79 John F. Kennedy StreetCambridge, Massachusetts 02138

617-495-0557www.ash.harvard.edu

DirectorTony Saich

Associate Director for CommunicationsDaniel Harsha

EditorJessica Engelman

Designforminform

PhotographyJulien Behal, Maxwell PhotographyNatalie Behring/World Economic ForumHung Chung Chih/ShutterstockBen DannerEnvironmental Defense FundAlexander Laws/iStockRose LincolnMaisie O’BrienKinan Al ShaghouriJonathan TeoAhsen Utku

http://www.ash.harvard.edu


IN THE NEWS

2Q+A with Quinton Mayne

3Ash Center News and Announcements

16Event Snapshots

FEATURES

6China Gives: The Ash CenterSurveys China’s PhilanthropicLandscape

8Democracy Fellowship Program: Shaping a New Fieldof Scholars

In this Issue

RESEARCH BRIEF

15Fellows FocusMeet Our New Fellows

IN THE FIELD

10Alumni in the FieldJayant Kairam MPP 2010

13Student FocusA Lifelong Learner and Traveler:Roy and Lila Ash Fellow Priscilla Lee

14Student FocusTravel Grants Support StudentResearch

14Student FocusNew Ash Center Workshop Connects Students to the CivicTech Scene

NEWS IN DEPTH

5Convening on ParticipatoryBudgeting

11New Papers from the Ash Center

12Innovations in Government Convenings

16

2

6

8 10

13

3

5

2 Communiqué Spring 2016 www.ash.harvard.edu

IN THE NEWS

You teach SUP-601: Urban Politics, Planning, andDevelopment at the Kennedy School. What drewyou to the politics of urban areas? I work a lot on how powers are distributed acrosslevels of government with a focus on local govern-ment. I'm really interested in understanding the dif-ference in the powers that cities and localgovernments have and what the consequences ofthose differences are for how people think and actpolitically. I’m also interested in how these differ-ences affect the types of goods and services localgovernments are able to produce. There's a lot of ex-citement right now, and energy, around cities as thesite of participation and engagement and at the levelwhere problems can get solved and challenges canbe addressed. I care a lot about trying to figure outthe conditions under which cities are able to realizetheir potential as real problem-solvers and spaces ofmeaningful participation.

You're currently working on a book project, TheSatisfied Citizen. How is citizen satisfaction shapedin the countries that you've studied?In the book manuscript I make the argument that themore politically empowered local governments are,the more likely citizens are to be satisfied with thefunctioning of democracy. In cities where local gov-ernments play a key role in shaping meaningful pub-lic policies, such as in education or social services—where governments are pretty politically empow-ered—we find that in those places, citizens are muchless likely to be politically disaffected.

What are some of the differences—that you'venoted in your research—between American and Eu-ropean democracies regarding how citizen voicesinfluence government?Just focusing in on cities as spaces for voice and in-fluence, on the surface it might seem as if cities inthe United States have a lot of powers at their dis-posal to shape certain outcomes for citizens, butthey're constrained in a number of different ways.Either by the actions of higher levels of governmentor by a lack of fiscal capacity. In some countries inWestern Europe, cities are embedded in regionaland national systems of fiscal redistribution thatmeans that, in addition to sometimes having similarpowers as those enjoyed by some cities in the US,cities in certain countries also have important fiscalresources at their disposal. The result is that in thesecontexts, cities then are able to serve as engines ofhuman welfare in a way that isn't always the case oris especially difficult in the United States.

So, it really comes down to that classic dichotomybetween the American engine of urban capitalismand the European social welfare state, exceptboiled down to the municipal level. In a lot of research on cities in the US, there's a focuson cities as growth machines and as engines of eco-nomic development. Certainly in Europe, there's anincreasing emphasis on cities—and regions also—asproductive spaces, spaces of employment, spaces ofdevelopment; but the role of cities in some countriesin designing and delivering key welfare services,rooted in a broader system of fiscal equalization,means that they are able to generate growth as wellas provide goods and services that mean most andnot just a minority of citizens benefit from thatgrowth.

You're currently editing a series of posts on hous-ing affordability for the Ash Center's DemocracyProgram blog. Do you see the debate over afford-ability as one of the biggest issues in urban politicstoday?Affordability has definitely increased in relevance asa political topic in recent years, especially after theGreat Recession. That's true on both sides of the At-lantic. I think that the biggest issue facing Americancities, and democracy more generally, is the abilityand willingness of citizens to find a place at the de-cision-making table—both individually at the ballotbox, but also collectively through social movementsand organizing for and outside of elections.

In cities in the US there's a long history of lowlevels of electoral participation. What cities in theUS reveal is both politics as the problem and poli-tics as the solution. Currently, we see more of theformer, where politics seems to be getting in theway of managing or solving important problems,like affordability. That's in large part related to along history of citizens and communities not beingas empowered or involved in policymaking process-es at the level of the city. When you have turnoutrates of between 15 and 30 percent, that doesn'tsignal a citizenry that is being engaged in the polit-ical process. It's not surprising, then, that the typesof services and goods that city authorities decide toplan or deliver may not be meeting the needs of cit-izens—be it housing affordability, child care, high-quality education, or sustainable infrastructureinvestments. These problems won’t be fundamen-tally addressed by avoiding or working around pol-itics; they will only be properly addressed througha renewed engagement with politics.

Q+A with Quinton Mayne

C

Quinton Mayne is AssistantProfessor of Public Policy at the John F. KennedySchool of Government at Harvard University


3www.ash.harvard.edu Spring 2016 Communiqué

IN THE NEWS

New China Programs Fellows

Three fellows have joined the Ash Center’s China Pro-grams for AY15–17, including Huirong Chen and SaraNewland, who received the China Public Policy Post-doctoral Fellowship, and John Chung-En Liu, who re-ceived a China Energy Policy Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Huirong Chen is an associate professor in theSchool of International andPublic Affairs at ShanghaiJiao Tong University andreceived his PhD in politicalscience from the Universityof Hong Kong. As a ChinaPublic Policy Fellow, he isresearching civic engagement in sustaining author-itarianism in China and working on a book manuscript on the political economy of China'sland tenure institution. SaraNewland received her PhD in political science from the University of California,Berkeley and has taught inthe Expository Writing Pro-gram at Harvard. Her bookproject is on local governance in ethnically diverseparts of China, with a focus on how county govern-

ments and non-state actors provide public healthand education services. Her broader research agen-da concerns the strategies that the Chinese Com-munist Party and other authoritarian regimes use to maintain control without resorting to violence,ranging from the regulation of civil society organizations to Internet and media censorship.John Chung-En Liu receivedhis PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is analyzingpublic understanding of cli-mate change with survey andsocial media data.

“The fellows joining the China Programs bringwith them a broad array of experience and animpressive quality of scholarship that will add tothe intellectual community of the Ash Center,” saidChina Programs Director Edward Cunningham.“They are each committed to deepening our under-standing of some of the biggest issues impactingChina today, and we have enjoyed working withthem and look forward to their future work.”

Please read about all of our new fellows on page 15.

On January 22, 2016, a broad range of academicsand practitioners from across the world traveled toCambridge for a conference on disaster recovery or-ganized by the Ash Center’s Program on Crisis Lead-ership and the Belfer Center’s Broadmoor Project.Entitled “Accelerating Disaster Recovery: Strategies,Tensions, and Obstacles,” the event provided a sin-gular opportunity for participants to discuss thecomplex challenges underlying recovery efforts andto explore ways to more effectively recover from fu-ture disasters.

“Recovery from major disasters is hugely impor-tant and a fundamental part of the human condi-

Disaster Recovery Conference

tion,” said Dutch Leonard, faculty co-director of theProgram on Crisis Leadership, in his openingremarks at the conference. “There are massivesocial costs that exist not only as a result of disas-ters themselves—but also as a result of our inabilityto deal with and recover from them as effectively aswe would like.”

The conference was composed of four panelsessions, each organized around a key theme ofdisaster recovery, including the tensions and size-able tradeoffs often associated with recovery,mechanisms to help communities process losswhile they begin to move forward and rebuild in the

aftermath of disaster, and disaster recovery gover-nance. During each panel, speakers described theirparticular expertise and direct experience with dis-aster situations, and also engaged in interactivedialogue with the audience. Modeled after the Har-vard case study method, the final session of theconference analyzed a hypothetical scenario—TheSan Andreas Earthquake of 2023—to spark discus-sion of what the disaster could look like, whatactions could be taken ahead of time to make therecovery more effective, and what lessons from theprevious panels could be applied to this event.

In January, the Ash Center announced a generousgift from the Dalio Foundation to support the es-tablishment of the Center's new China PhilanthropyProject. The project enables a range of activitiesthat support the recently launched China GlobalPhilanthropy Institute (CGPI) in Shenzhen, China,and will build talent within China’s charitable organ-izations and provide an important platform for in-ternational cooperation. The new project at theCenter supports students, visiting scholars, training,and research related to China’s emerging philan-thropic sector. CGPI was announced in November2015 and is a collaborative project supported by theDalio Foundation along with other philanthropistsand foundations from the US and China. The AshCenter and CGPI are building a research-based plat-form between the US and China that will exploremodels and traditions of giving, definitions of gen-erosity, and related institutional aspects of buildingan effective and vibrant philanthropic sector. Thegrowing acceptance of charitable organizations inChina further supports such development. For moreon the China Philanthropy Project, see this issue’sfeature article.

Gift from Dalio Foundation

FAR LEFT

Moderator Arnold Howitt, Faculty Co-Director,

Program on Crisis Leadership, HKS; and panelists

Felipe Kast, Congress of Chile; LU Xiaoli, Assis-

tant Professor and Associate Director, Center for

Crisis Management Research, Tsinghua Universi-

ty, China; and Doug Ahlers, Senior Fellow, Pro-

gram on Crisis Leadership, HKS

LEFT

Conference participant Shanika Hettige, gradu-

ate student, Harvard Graduate School of Design



IN THE NEWS

In February, the Ash Centerannounced the appointmentof Latin America policy ex-pert, Peter Quilter, as seniornon-residential fellow. Quilter,who most recently served asthe secretary for administra-tion and finance at the Organization of AmericanStates (OAS), joins the Center where he will focus onissues surrounding both the growth and retrench-ment of democracy in the Western Hemisphere.“Peter’s perspective as a thought leader on LatinAmerica policy will do much to expand the Ash Cen-ter’s presence in the region and provide the KennedySchool community with unique insight into the perilsand progress of democracy in the Americas today,”said Tony Saich, Daewoo Professor of InternationalAffairs and Ash Center director.

Before assuming his post with the OAS, Quilterserved as a senior Democratic staff member of theUS House of Representatives Committee on For-eign Affairs with responsibility for the WesternHemisphere. He has held posts in the US StateDepartment, and was a Latin America policy advi-sor to both Obama presidential campaigns, as wellas to the John Kerry campaign.

At the Ash Center, Quilter will lead seminarsexamining the current state of democracy in theAmericas as well as the US role in promoting demo-cratic growth in the region. “I am looking forward tothe opportunity to reflect on the immense changesgripping Latin America today, as well as workingwith students who are passionate about the growthof democratic institutions there,” said Quilter.

Peter Quilter AppointedSenior Non-Residential Fellow

In October, the Ash Center’s Government InnovatorsNetwork launched a new blog. This new feature en-hances our marketplace of government innovationby bringing new insights on emerging solutions ininnovative government to our global audience. Theblog focuses on the latest innovative trends andstrategies in the belief that such approaches areneeded to confront the toughest challenges publicofficials face today. Successful innovations are high-lighted, and policymakers and practitioners fromaround the world have the opportunity to share theirexperiences with innovating, adopting innovations,

New Government Innovators Network Blog

The Ash Center kicked off the application processfor its prestigious Innovations in American Govern-ment Award in January and applications were duein April. For the second straight year, the Ash Centeris also funding a second innovation award, the Roy

and Lila Ash Innovations Award forPublic Engagement in Govern-ment, to better highlight thework of public engagementand participation programs,policies, and initiatives fromaround the country. Appli-

cants for both awards will bejudged on novelty, effectiveness,

significance, and transferability. Programs seekingthe Roy and Lila Ash Award will also be judged ontheir impact on public engagement and participa-tion. The winners of both $100,000 awards will beannounced in 2017.

The Ash Center’s Innovation Field Lab, an ambitiousexperiential learning project directed by Ash Centerfaculty affiliate Jorrit de Jong, is expanding to Salemand Winthrop, Massachusetts this year. “The addi-tion of Winthrop and Salem to the Field Lab willstrengthen and expand the Kennedy School’s effortsto help Massachusetts cities develop innovative so-lutions to tough social problems,” said de Jong afterboth cities signed agreement with the Center.

The Innovation Field Lab pairs medium-sizedcities in the Greater Boston region with studentsand faculty researchers at the Kennedy School tohelp implement innovative policy solutions in thepartner cities. “This is one of the best experiencesour students can have to complement the class-room learning," said HKS Academic Dean for Teach-ing and Curriculum Suzanne Cooper. "There isnothing that can replace the opportunity for stu-dents to get their hands dirty in the field."

In addition to the new partnerships with Salemand Winthrop, the cities of Fitchburg, Chelsea, andLawrence, Massachusetts also signed new agree-ments to continue their collaboration with the Inno-vation Field Lab that began last year. “We have acommunity that is aggressive in trying to deliverefficient services,” said Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll ather city’s partnership signing ceremony at theKennedy School. “Being willing to take that disrup-tive attitude when it comes to delivering services isexciting.”

Central to the Field Lab are teams of graduatestudents who collaborate with local governmentsto develop a holistic, data-driven strategy to priori-tize and resolve the prevalence of problem proper-ties. The Field Lab is led by de Jong and Somerville,Massachusetts Mayor Joe Curtatone, who alsoholds an appointment as an Innovations in Ameri-can Government Senior Fellow at the Ash Center.

Innovation Field Lab Expands to Two New Cities

Lecturer in Public Policy Jorrit de Jong speaks

to students in the Innovation Field Lab

Fellow Elected Mayor ofCurridabat, Costa Rica forThird Term

Edgar Mora Altamirano, cur-rently a non-resident researchfellow at the Ash Center andformer Roy and Lila Ash stu-dent fellow, won his thirdterm as mayor of Curridabat,Costa Rica this February. Cur-ridabat, under Mora Altamirano’s leadership, re-ceived the Congress for New Urbanism award forBest City Plan in 2014. At the Ash Center, Mora Al-tamirano’s focuses on relationships between urbandesign, the responsive capacity of municipal govern-ments, and how best to encourage city dwellers togenerate social capital within their communities.

and creating a culture of innovation. In addition, theblog addresses many of the challenges that innova-tors face, and looks at current research on innovationin the public sector and the future of innovation.Bloggers include prominent academics, innovatorsand innovation experts, and public policy studentsfrom across the globe. The Innovators Insights blogcan be found at innovations.harvard.edu/blog.

Innovations in AmericanGovernment Award

www.innovations.harvard.edu/blog



NEWS IN DEPTH

The Ash Center, in partnership with the DemocracyFund and the White House Office of Science andTechnology Policy, hosted a two-day convening onparticipatory budgeting in February in the nation’scapital. In attendance were nearly 75 elected officialsand other municipal officials, academics, technolo-gists, community members, and representativesfrom the federal government all with an interest inexpanding and strengthening participatory budget-ing programs across the US.

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a relatively newmodel of citizen engagement in which communitymembers directly decide how to allocate publicfunds. The winner of the Center’s 2015 Roy and LilaAsh Innovations Award for Public Engagement inGovernment was New York City’s participatorybudgeting program, known as PBNYC, the largestsuch effort in the country.

As part of the Center’s efforts to help spreadresearch, case studies, and best practices of winnersof its innovations award, the Innovation in Govern-ment Program worked with the White House to con-vene key participatory budgeting stakeholders fromaround the county to discuss how to expand PB toincreasing numbers of cities across the country. “Weare placing a renewed emphasis on replication anddissemination with our innovations award winnersby taking advantage of our institutional conveningpower and relationships with practitioners to getthese innovations in the hands of policymakersacross the country,” said Stephen Goldsmith, theDaniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Governmentand director of the Innovation in Government Pro-gram at the Ash Center. The convening providedattendees the opportunity to strengthen community

decision-making by developing commitments toconcrete action for deepening public participationin government in their own communities.

At the conference, city councilors and commu-nity members active in PBNYC described the suc-cesses and challenges in administering PB inAmerica’s largest city. “It really brings out in peoplea powerful sense of being shared stewards of thepublic realm,” said New York City CouncilmemberBrad Lander during an earlier interview when hewas pushing to get New York’s then-fledgling PBprogram off the ground. Lander, who has been aforceful advocate for PB in New York, has workedtirelessly to expand this innovative initiative in civicengagement to offices throughout New York’s 51-member large city council.

Representatives from other cities interested instarting PB programs of their own took the oppor-tunity to pepper panelists for advice about how tobuild support for PB in their communities. “There isthis growing interest in participatory budgetingacross the country, and this conference was a cru-cial opportunity for cities to connect with academ-ics, foundations, and federal officials to understandthe universe of resources targeted towards PB,”said Ash fellow Hollie Russon Gilman, who moder-ated a panel on community outreach and engage-ment. Russon Gilman is the author of DemocracyReinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Inno-vation in America, a groundbreaking academicstudy of PB published jointly by the Ash Center andthe Brookings Institution Press.

The White House invited participants to anevening reception in the ornate Indian Treaty Room,where senior administration officials and HKS facul-

Convening on Participatory BudgetingFebruary 22–23, 2016

ty spoke about the importance of PB as a tool forreengaging the public with government. “Whenparticipatory budgeting is at its best, ordinary citi-zens became creative actors in the process ofdetermining what government should do, govern-ment is more knowledgeable about their needs andresponsive to them, and justice is served becausepublic action benefits those who need it most, notjust the loudest or wealthiest voices,” said ArchonFung, Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy andAcademic Dean of Harvard Kennedy School. Pro-fessor Fung gave opening remarks at the WhiteHouse along with John Holdren, the director of theWhite House Office of Science and Technology Pol-icy who is on leave from his position as the Teresaand John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policyat Harvard Kennedy School.

LEFT TOP

Academic Dean Archon Fung

LEFT BOTTOM

Director of the Innovations in

American Government Program

Stephen Goldsmith

ABOVE RIGHT

Participants of the Participatory

Budgeting Convening in

the Indian Treaty Room at the

White House

C



Over a century ago, the Gilded Age tycoons of Amer-ica realized that getting rich was the easy part. Givingaway their fortunes would require an altogether newvision of how they wished to leave their imprint onsociety—all done without the guiding hands of pro-fessional philanthropic advisors or longstanding char-itable foundations. Generations later, the totems ofthat age, the Carnegies and Rockefellers, have lefttheir indelible mark on America through their chari-table works. Now a new breed of super-wealthy, thistime hailing from China—home to the world’s largestconcentration of billionaires—is beginning to grapplewith the demands of contemporary philanthropy.

Understanding the state of philanthropy in China and identifying trends incharitable giving among China’s wealthy is the focus of the Ash Center’s ChinaPhilanthropy Project, a new research effort established at the Ash Center in2015 in part by the generous support of the Dalio Foundation. “The world is fix-ated on China’s growing wealth and economic might. It is evident in the USpresidential campaign. It is evident in the development of new regional tradeaccords, but few people are thinkingabout China’s future role in global phi-lanthropy,” said Edward Cunningham,director of the China Programs at theAsh Center, who is leading the project.

“The western philanthropic com-munity has been trying to help pushalong the development of China’sphilanthropic sector,” said Evan Korn-bluh, a joint HKS MPP and HBS MBA‘18 student, who worked closely withCunningham on the China Philanthropy Project. In 2010, Bill Gates and WarrenBuffet memorably traveled to China to encourage the country’s nascent philan-thropists to open their wallets—but were largely rebuffed. Their visit failed tospark a surge in charitable giving at the time but, in the last few years, China’swealthy have begun increasingly turning towards philanthropy.

To help visualize the current philanthropic landscape in China, Cunninghamalso teamed up with Peiran Wei (MPA/MC 2015), a research fellow at the AshCenter who previously worked as a reporter for Bloomberg where he helpeddevelop the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index for China. “We took a journalistic

CHINAGIVES The Ash Center Surveys China’s Philanthropic Landscape

“The world is fixated onChina’s growing wealth andeconomic might… but fewpeople are thinking aboutChina’s future role in globalphilanthropy.” Edward Cunningham



approach to developing the data for the project by examining all publicly avail-able information on these philanthropists and then filling in gaps by independ-ently verifying charitable contributions. By doing that, we were ultimately ableto create a model for each individual built from the data we had uncovered.”

The project team wanted to create more than just a list of wealthy philan-thropists, though, and set their sights on developing a more comprehensivedatabase to identify trends in charitable giving. “Our ‘China’s Most Generous’list is an attempt to shift the debate away from a focus on absolute wealth andtowards bigger questions around generosity,” added Cunningham. The projectteam began collecting data on major philanthropic donations within China thatoccurred from September 2014 to August 2015. Specifically, they worked toidentify donors through their professional background, type of giving, philan-thropic causes supported, vehicle of support (direct donation, donationthrough another foundation, etc.), origin and destination of giving, and type ofrecipient organization to which they gave.

What they found was more than just a simple list of China’s newly wealthyand their pet charitable causes.

“I was most struck by this big imbalance in both geographic locations [ofcharitable giving] and philanthropic causes supported,” said Wei. “Looking atthe data, education is the most supported field, encompassing almost two-thirds of philanthropists on our lists. If you closely examine these donations,you'll see a lot of the large scale donations—by that I mean over 100 millionyuan, which is about 16 million dollars—going to universities in China.”

While the scope of educational giving in China is hardly surprising, giventhat contributions to educational institutions in the US outpace all othersexcept for giving to religious causes, the project team was surprised that envi-ronmental causes received so little support in comparison. Of China’s 100 mostgenerous philanthropists included on the team’s list, only four contributed toenvironmental causes. “We've been reading reports every day about how badthe air pollution is in Beijing and Shanghai, and I'm very surprised there's so lit-tle attention in that field,” said Wei.

Further research and analysis also revealed that giving in China was largelyconfined to wealthier, more industrialized provinces along the country’s eastcoast. While the state has channeled significant resources towards the coun-try’s less developed areas in the west, charitable contributions have not fol-lowed. “I don't think many philanthropists actually know that there's so littleattention being paid by the wealthy to places like Xinjiang or Tibet,” said Pei.“When they make donations, we suspect they tend to look at things and placesaround themselves.”

While China’s philanthropy sector has shown remarkable growth in recentyears—the China Philanthropy Project’s initial survey included a total of $3.8billion in donations in 2015—China still lags far behind other countries in totalphilanthropic giving. Charities Aid Foundation, a British based nonprofit thatpublishes an annual ranking of global philanthropy, has consistently measuredChina near the bottom of its list. For a country with the second largest economyin the world, this gap between economic output and annual giving serves as astark reminder that China’s philanthropic sector has considerable room to grow.

On the other hand, Kornbluh, who worked for a small educational nonprofitin China before returning to the US for graduate school has seen how the coun-try’s wealthy have indeed started to turn to philanthropic giving. “The last cou-ple years that I was working in China, we saw a really dramatic sea change inthe level of interest from high net worth individuals in China, and a change inthe culture starting to emerge in terms of how people in the business world inChina were starting to think about philanthropy and social impact.”

Though the Chinese billionaire class may grab headlines today, it is impor-tant to remember that China’s modern wealth is only about two decades old.“Between 1949 and 1979, everything was essentially planned—all economicactivities and all commercial activities are actually regulated by the govern-ment. There were essentially no private businesses, no private wealth,” addsWei. Philanthropy was not the first thing on the minds of China’s emergingindustrial and business elite. “After 1979, you see a lot of entrepreneurs emerg-

ABOVE

The China Philanthropy Project

research team (left to right):

Peiran Wei, Yanhan Zhao,

Edward Cunningham, Tony Saich,

David Li, and Zijia Guo

ing, but when they first become rich, the first thing they want to do is probablynot giving away their newly acquired wealth.”

China’s elite is now maturing and becoming globally sophisticated, andtherefore beginning to turn to philanthropy in greater force. “One of the trendswe cited in the research is how China’s philanthropists are starting to profes-sionalize,” said Kornbluh. The wealthy in China are creating foundations andbeginning to think more strategically about how they will give in the future.“More people are hiring their own staff, they're setting up websites, they'redrafting giving principles, and they're moving away from what was a very ad-

hoc process driven solely by individ-ual interest or public relationsdemands,” he added.

The government will also have toreassess whether it wants to takesteps to encourage philanthropy. “InChina, individual giving enjoys verylittle effective tax incentive,” saidCunningham. China’s Ministry of CivilAffairs, mindful of the proliferation ofnonprofits and other nongovernmen-

tal organizations in the country, makes registering philanthropic foundations adifficult task. “As a result the majority of Chinese donors often give directlyfrom a corporation, give to government-affiliated recipients, and they givelocally,” added Cunningham.

While China’s philanthropy sector continues to mature, Cunningham pre-dicts that wealthy Chinese may become a force in global giving in the not toodistant future. “We’ll end up seeing that as their personal experience becomesmore global, as their children are educated abroad and they tend to buy andacquire foreign property and therefore live extended periods of time abroad,the social network of these newly wealthy tends to globalize. I think absolutelyyou will see the globalization of Chinese philanthropy.”

As China’s giving develops, Cunningham and his team will be watching toidentify the latest philanthropic trends and understand how the country’swealthy will cement their legacy for generations to come.

The China Philanthropy Project’s website and report on its first year of datamay be found at chinaphilanthropy.ash.harvard.edu.

Now a new breed of super-wealthy, this time hailing fromChina — home to the world’slargest concentration of bil-lionaires — is beginning tograpple with the demands ofcontemporary philanthropy.

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chinaphilanthropy.ash.harvard.edu



In 2008, the Ash Center reenvisioned its Democratic Governance Program as anactive research community that would fill a void in current scholarship in dem-ocratic governance by fostering research that is not only normatively and em-pirically sophisticated but also problem-driven and actionable.

The Ash Center’s Democracy Fellowship Program is the heart of the Demo-cratic Governance Program’s efforts to build a new field of scholarship—andscholars—studying both the challenges to democratic governance and promis-ing solutions.

For five years, the Democracy Fellowship Program has welcomed postdoc-toral scholars as well as doctoral candidates, senior scholars, and practitionersfrom a variety of disciplines and perspectives. Ash Center Director Tony Saichand Academic Dean Archon Fung have just published a retrospective celebrat-ing the Democracy Fellowship Program on the occasion of its fifth anniversary.The full report is available on the Ash Center website at ash.harvard.edu.

Building a CommunityThe retrospective highlights the unique intellectual community created by theAsh Center over the last five years. Democracy Fellows enjoy time and spaceaway from teaching and other commitments that detract from their researchand writing. Postdocs prepare a manuscript from their dissertations, write arti-cles for submission to peer-reviewed journals, gather additional data, or developand collaborate with others on new research projects. Senior scholars on sab-batical work on any number of research and writing projects. Doctoral studentsare typically refining or completing their dissertations.

At the heart of the Democracy Fel-lows Program and its intellectual com-munity is the weekly seminar led byAcademic Dean Fung. The weekly sem-inar is a master class in democratic

governance that acts as a forum through which young scholars gain experiencediscussing world events and democratic theory in an interdisciplinary setting.

“Writing a dissertation is a solitary job,” writes Elena Fagotto (TransparencyFellow 2009–2012), Research Director of the Ash Center’s Transparency PolicyProject. “So I cherished the seminars because we could all come together andexplore deep philosophical questions… The variety of topics we discussed, the

contribution each fellow brought, and Archon’s skillful way of steering the dis-cussion made the seminars a truly enriching and memorable experience.”

Another fellow describes the experience as “The best forum out there fordebating democracy.”

About the FellowsEach year, the Democracy Fellows comprise an interdisciplinary cohort thatdraws outstanding scholars conducting research that illuminates aspects of dem-ocratic governance. We welcomed 44 Democracy Fellows in the program’s firstfive years, representing a diversity of institutions, regions, and research interests.

One fellow writes, “In my cohort we had scholars from the United States,Canada, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Germany, France,the United Kingdom, Finland, and many other places as well. We had econo-mists, lawyers, political scientists, policy analysts, government officials, aca-demics, philosophers, and activists. Our common interests revolve around thepromises (and challenges) of democratic governance.”

Democracy Fellows have a robust set of research interests including innova-tions in participation; the mechanics and potential of public deliberation;understanding the influence of digital technology on democratic governance;the provision of public goods and services in a democratic society; the relation-

ABOVE TOP

Academic Dean Archon Fung (center)

leads a recent Democracy Fellows

weekly seminar

ABOVE BOTTOM

Assistant Professor Quinton Mayne

(center), who was the Center’s first

Democracy Postdoctoral Fellow, still

actively contributes to the Democracy

Fellows weekly seminar

“The best forum out there for debating democracy.”

Five-Year RetrospectiveDemocracy Fellowship Program

Shaping a New Field of Scholars




ship between democratic governance and persistent problems such as injus-tice, discrimination, and inequality; the frontiers of democratic theory; and sub-national politics and policymaking.

Impact on Scholarship and PracticeThe retrospective highlights the impressive contributions that the global networkof Democracy Fellows has made in these and other areas through robust schol-arship, through instructing the next generation of political and civic leaders, andthrough practice.

Membership in this network affords an academic legitimacy and self-confi-dence. It also means that former Democracy Fellows are championing out-standing scholarship on democratic governance—with an emphasis on practicalsolutions—throughout the world’s most prestigious academic institutions.

One measure of the contributions of former Democracy Fellows is the vol-ume and variety of their scholarship. Since leaving the Ash Center, this grouphas produced at least 135 articles, books, chapters, working papers, and policyreports for government and civic organizations.

Equally important are the contributions of former Democracy Fellows whoare in professional roles on the frontlines of improving democratic governancein legislatures, think tanks, and development organizations across the globe.

Cristiano Ferri Soares de Faria (Visiting Fellow 2009–2010) is long-timedirector of the HackerLab in the Brazilian House of Representatives, where hehas championed a number of pioneering and award-winning projects in lever-aging digital technology to promote citizen voice and participation. FranciscaRojas (Transparency Fellow 2010–2013) is a Housing and Urban DevelopmentSpecialist for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC andBuenos Aires, Argentina.

Democracy Fellows pursuing academic careers are also keeping a hand inpractice. Quinton Mayne (Postdoctoral Fellow 2010–2012), Assistant Professorof Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, is working with another Ash Centerfaculty member Jorrit de Jong on a novel Innovation Field Lab for the School’sstudents. This partnership with five Massachusetts cities deploys dedicatedgroups of students to examine urban problems in a focused and systematicway, providing technological solutions beneficial to the city and its residents.

Looking ForwardThe Democratic Governance Program’s ability to have an impact on fellows, im-buing a commitment to real-world solutions in their future career choices andscholarship, relies on meeting three primary objectives: identifying and attractingoutstanding scholars committed to practical solutions, providing a unique intel-lectual environment, and building a global network. The Democracy FellowshipProgram will continue to attract the brightest young and established scholarscommitted to improving the quality of democratic governance—and providethem with a unique, robust intellectual community.

Based on feedback from former fellows, we hope to engage more visitingsenior scholars and senior faculty from across the University. This involvementwould create more opportunities for younger scholars to benefit from individ-ual mentoring in both their research and career development. Another initiativecould be to help connect fellows to practitioners in their fields of interest, forexample, government and civic leaders launching democratic innovations, forboth research and instructional purposes.

Fellows have expressed a desire to be able to continue to share recent work,exchange ideas, and perhaps identify new opportunities for collaboration withother Democracy Fellows after their fellowships have ended. In some ways, thisfifth anniversary of the Democracy Fellowship Program has offered a wonderfulopportunity to reconnect with some former fellows, and to deepen ties withothers, in the process of updating the fellows’ current information includingpublications and other accomplishments. It will serve as a solid foundation formaintaining and strengthening the global network of Democracy Fellows.

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Technische Universität Berlin

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

University of BathUniversity of British Columbia

University of California Berkeley

University of California Los Angeles

University of Maryland

University of Minais Gerais

London School of Economics

Harvard University

Goethe University of Frankfurt

European University Institute

Erasmus University RotterdamEmory University

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DemocracyFellowship

Program

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Comparative/International

Political and Democratic Theory

Public Policy

Technology

Deliberative Democracy

Innovation

Welfare, Poverty, Inequality

Law

Economics

Race, Gender, Ethnicity

Urban Politics

Transparency

Social Movements

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Current Positions: Ash Center-Funded Fellows Current Positions: Senior Scholars,Visiting Fellows, and Practitioners

PhD-Granting Institutions

Primary Research Interests

Country of Origin

The Democracy Fellowscomprise a broadlyinterdisciplinary cohort drawntogether by a commitment tounderstanding the greatestchallenges to democraticgovernance and exploringpromising solutions. Asoutstanding scholars, mosthave multiple interests. Hereis a list of the top 14 areas ofresearch interest representedby Democracy Fellows.

Each cohort of Democracy Fellows is international in its composition, bringingan element of geographicand cultural diversity to thegroup. Past fellows repre-sent 17 different countries;to the right is a world map showing the countries represented by DemocracyFellows.

The Democracy FellowshipProgram has attractedsome of the best youngand established scholarsfrom 26 of the world’s top universities. Thisdiagram shows the PhD-granting institutionsrepresented by theDemocracy Fellows.

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IN THE FIELD

“Climate change is the fight of our time,” says JayantKairam MPP 2010 from his office at EnvironmentalDefense Fund (EDF) in Austin, Texas. “Every day wesee the increased threats that climate change posesto coastlines, agriculture, water, public health, andpolitical and economic stability, and we must actnow to reduce carbon pollution.”

As the Director of Partnerships for EDF’s CleanEnergy program, Kairam is often speaking aboutthe exigency of climate action. He is, like many ofhis colleagues, responsible for communicatingEDF’s mission to advance solutions that address theworld’s most pressing environmental problems.Kairam manages a small team of seasoned advo-cates working on an array of domestic energyreform initiatives, like promoting community solar,developing energy efficiency programs for ruralcooperatives, and making clean energy available tounderserved urban and rural communities acrossthe country.

“Our country’s electricity system accounts for40 percent of carbon emissions, and we have theopportunity to make it cleaner, more resilient, moreaffordable, and less reliant on fossil fuels,” saidKairam. “We have choices — cheaper renewables,tools to make the grid more efficient, data andinnovation to empower consumers, smarter build-ings that store and respond to loads, and dynamicpricing. We need to make the financial investmentsand policy changes to transform the way we gener-ate and use electricity.”

“As an advocacy organization, we have strongopinions,” Kairam adds. “What attracted me to EDFis its reliance on science and economics to createmarket-based solutions that are practical and workacross sectors to create climate and energy reform.”

In keeping with its cross-sector model, EDFcounts WalMart and McDonald’s among its corpo-rate partners. Considering their sizable carbon foot-prints, these companies may seem like unlikelyallies in the fight against climate change, butKairam explains the importance of partnershipswith business. “The business sector cannot beignored,” he says. “Think about their supply chain,think about their investments, think about the num-ber of people they employ, and the amount of realestate they own. If they green their operations, thenthat has a tremendous impact across the world.”

“Policymakers have to listen to corporations.They’re employers in their district, they provideservices,” he continued. “Bringing together corpo-rate voices in support of clean energy initiatives andinvestments is market moving. It changes the tem-per of the conversation, and it counters negative

attitudes about the environment in this country.”While a student at Harvard Kennedy School

(HKS), Kairam was also working across sectors tofind innovative solutions to complex problems.After taking Innovations Program Director SteveGoldsmith’s course “Leading Cities,” he worked forGoldsmith on the “Better, Faster, Cheaper” blog,drafting profiles on efficiency projects throughoutthe country. Supported by the Ash Center, Kairamalso did a summer internship in Louisville, Kentucky,working under Mayor Jerry Abramson. He puttogether a comprehensive assessment of gaps inafterschool programming and compiled key educa-tion metrics like graduation rates.

For his policy analysis exercise (PAE), the cap-stone for his degree, Kairam conducted an in-depthanalysis of the culture of innovation in Boston’smunicipal workforce, assessing how likely employ-ees were to take risks while working within thestrictures of a bureaucratic system. Ash Center Pro-fessor Mark Moore served as his PAE advisor. “Myexperiences at HKS and the work I did at the AshCenter really opened my eyes to public sector inno-vation and how valuable that can be in improvingquality of life,” Kairam reflects. “The service deliveryand operational sides of government, while notglamorous or likely to make the front page of anewspaper, contribute so much to the well-being ofcommunities.”

After graduating from HKS, Kairam worked inNew York City government, first as a senior policyadvisor for the deputy mayor of operations and thenas the chief operating officer for the Business Integri-

ty Commission where he oversaw the city’s commer-cial waste and market businesses. He was chargedwith instituting a series of environmental reforms toensure that waste fleets complied with federal emis-sions standards and combatted the negative impactthe sector had on the city’s overall air quality. It washis first project addressing environmental concernsand it made a lasting impression.

“I got into environmental and sustainability issuesbecause of my interest in cities and making cities bet-ter,” Kairam says. “Sustainability is one way you canconnect the dots across all of the issues that impactcommunities. It allows you to connect housing topublic health to safety to education. Garbage transferstations are located in some of New York City’s poor-est communities. When residents see politiciansworking to remove the fumes and black carbon fromtrucks lining up in front of their houses every day, thatis very directly meaningful to them. The tangibility ofconnecting the waste system to air quality to neigh-borhood improvement was really moving for me,especially having seen it at the local level.”

From his office in Austin, Kairam cannot alwayssee the on-the-ground impact of the work he isdoing to promote environmental reforms and cli-mate action, but he draws inspiration from his pastexperiences to motivate his team. “Climate changeis something that we have to tackle at the systemiclevel, while using stories at the local level to make itpalpable,” he says. “We have to find ways to conveyto people how they can act now and what the con-sequences of climate change will look like acrossthe world and across sectors.”

Alumni in the Field Connecting the Dots on Sustainability—Jayant Kairam MPP 2010 is working across sectors tocombat climate change and strengthen communities

Jayant Kairam MPP 2010

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NEWS IN DEPTH

During the fall and early spring semesters, the AshCenter published a number of papers across all threeof the Center’s programs.

Engaging Citizens: Participatory Budgeting and theInclusive Governance Movement within the UnitedStatesBorn in Brazil in the late 1980s, participatory budg-eting refers to processes through which citizens helpto decide how to allocate public monies, empower-ing them to identify community needs, work withelected officials to craft budget proposals, and voteon how to spend public funds. Ash Center fellowHollie Russon Gilman provides a unique overview ofthe state of participatory budgeting today in theUnited States

Gilman’s paper provides an important overviewof the genesis of participatory budgeting and itscurrent incarnations in theUnited States. It situatesthe participatory budget-ing process within a largercontext of civic innovationstrategies occurring acrossAmerica. The paper out-lines the institutional chal-lenges and proposesassessment criteria to beconsidered when implementing civic and socialinnovations such as participatory budgeting.Gilman has also written Democracy Reinvented:Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation inAmerica, which was published by Brookings Institu-tion Press and the Ash Center in January 2016.

Hydropower in Myanmar: Moving Electricity Con-tracts from Colonial to CommercialDavid Dapice, senior economist for Mainland South-east Asia at the Ash Center, authored a paper onMyanmar’s struggle to increase its domestic electric-ity production and better harness its natural hy-dropower resources.

By comparison, Myanmar has less electricity percapita than Bangladesh and only a third of its pop-ulation is connected to grid electricity. AlthoughMyanmar has huge reserves of potential hydroelec-tricity, Dapice’s paper argues that more is at stakethan electricity supply, andthat the political implica-tions of hydro develop-ment are crucial to apeaceful and united futurefor Myanmar. The papercautions that hydroelectricprojects undertaken in thepast decade had exceed-ingly disadvantageous

terms that serve Myanmar poorly, and that to realizea stable political framework that promotes nationalunity, how hydroelectricity projects are approvedand developed, and how the revenue benefits aredistributed are as important as the electricity itself.

The National People’s Congress: Functions andMembershipTo many observers the roles and responsibilities ofChina’s legislative branch, the China’s National Peo-ple’s Congress (NPC), remains a mystery. Ash CenterDirector Tony Saich sets out to clarify the structureand purpose of the NPC in this paper by providingan overview of the NPC's role in China's governmen-tal hierarchy, its functions, and its membership. Saichnotes that the NPC is sometimes described as a “cer-emonial” legislature that functions as a “rubberstamp” for the Chinese Communist Party, but thatthe nature of the NPC and its members is also some-times misunderstood, or at least not fully explained.

The membership of the NPC totals almost 3,000and meeting only briefly each year means that formost delegates membership is ceremonial ratherthan substantial, according to Saich. For most, it isa sign of recognition or appreciation by the nationalleadership that they have contributed to society orthat they have particular expertise that is requiredby the NPC. Thus, the NPCdoes not function as a leg-islature in the way that itwould function in the USCongress or the BritishHouses of Parliament, nor,however, does the bodyserve solely as a “rubberstamp” approving the dic-tates of the executive withlittle debate or dissension.

Transforming the T: How MBTA Reform Can RightOur Broken Transportation SystemBetween runaway trains, soaring pension obligations,and overinflated construction costs, the breakdownof the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority(MBTA), Greater Boston’s primary public transporta-tion agency, is plain for just about all to see. CharlesChieppo, an Innovations in American GovernmentFellow at the Ash Center, released a report outlininga number of reforms intended to put the MBTA’s fis-cal house in order. Chieppo sounds the alarm by not-ing that the MBTA Fiscal Management and ControlBoard found that the T is looking at a $170 millionshortfall for the current fiscal year, which is projectedto grow to $427 million by fiscal year 2020.

Specifically, Chieppo calls for a number of criti-cal reforms, including halting further MBTA expan-sion until the system’s current maintenance backlog

is eliminated; reforming the MBTA’s on-demandservice for disabled riders who can’t use buses andtrains; taking advantage of newly passed legislationcarving out certain prohi-bitions to MBTA privatiza-tion of services bycontracting out bus main-tenance; ending final andbinding arbitration, so thatT employees operate bythe same rules as the restof the public sector inMassachusetts; and mov-ing MBTA employees into the state pension fund.

Series on Civic Engagement from Data-Smart CitySolutionsData-Smart City Solutions published a new series ofpapers exploring data-related facets of civic en-gagement in today’s cities. Under the direction ofthe Ash Center’s Professor Stephen Goldsmith, Data-Smart City Solutions aims to serve as a central re-source for cities interested in adopting newdata-smart tools or policies. The project writesabout and disseminates the latest civic data news,cases, and resources. This series focuses on civic en-gagement, a universal concern for cities, and an as-pect of governance that many cities are trying toimprove through data and technology. Data-Smartworked with leading experts in the field to developthe series as an in-depth set of resources for cities.

Debs Schrimmer, the Content and Policy Leadfor Code for America, wrote about “21st-CenturyCivic Engagement,” using Code for America’s part-nership with Boulder, Colorado, as a case study.Schrimmer’s paper explains how Code for Americaworked with Boulder to build new tools and devel-op data-driven processes to raise engagement.More specifically, the partnership aimed to stimu-late dialogue and collaboration with the communi-ty, increase civic participation and multi-waydialogue, and create an innovative approach toengagement that can be easily replicated. She pro-vides five key recommendations for governments

79 John F. Kennedy Street, Box 74 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 617-495-1134

www.ash.harvard.edu/myanmar-program

To Build or Not to Build?

Designing Sustainable Hydro for Federalism in Myanmar

Prepared for

Proximity Designs | Myanmar

February 2016

This research paper was written by David Dapice ([email protected]). It builds upon research carried out from 2012 to 2015. not necessarily reflect those of Proximity, the Government of the Union of Myanmar, or Harvard University. This study, along with other recent Ash-Proximity reports on Myanmar, is posted at http://ash.harvard.edu/journal-articles

Engaging Citizens: Participatory Budgeting and the Inclusive Governance Movement within the United States

Ash Center Occasional PapersTony Saich, Series Editor

By Hollie Russon Gilman

January 2016

Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

Harvard Kennedy School

The National People’s Congress: Functions and Membership

Tony Saich


November 2015

Transforming the T: How MBTA Reform Can Right Our Broken Transportation System

Charles Chieppo


December 2015

New Papers from the Ash Center

Charlie Chieppo, Innovations in American

Government Fellow, authored report arguing

for key MBTA reforms



NEWS IN DEPTH

looking to enhance their own engagement: expandreach, provide relevant and usable information, usechannels effectively, encourage productive actions,and create useful feedback loops.

Hollie Russon Gilman, an Ash Center Fellow anda Civic Innovation Fellow at New America, exploreda multi-sector approach to inclusive governance,along with technology’s ability to help enable suchcivic engagement. She denotes the many venuesfor civic engagement that are available to citizensand highlights how technology is currently allowingcitizens to inform public policy and fund publicworks. Citizens, government, society, and digitaltool developers all have a role to play in helping tocreate a more inclusive government, and she rec-ommends ways each of these groups can work toimprove engagement.

Emily Shaw, the Deputy Policy Director at theSunlight Foundation, explained how open data canboth encourage civic engagement and allow gov-ernments to get the most out of their data. Herpaper begins with a thorough explanation of whatopen data is and surveys current and historicalusage of open data by governments. She thenexplains why open data is attractive to govern-ments and expands on three essential benefits:doing more with less, improving internal data prac-tices, and improving communication with citizens.She concludes by detailing the basic steps govern-ments should take to begin opening their data andlists a number of key resources where governmentscan find out more about open data.

Jane Wiseman, leader of the Institute for Excel-lence in Government, examines the current lack ofcitizen input in government. She argues the publicis interested in providing feedback, citing severalcases where governments successfully solicitedinput from residents. Surveys, social media, and 311apps are examples of platforms that governmentscan use to reliably gather citizen feedback. Shehighlights Kansas City, Missouri, as a leading modelfor how feedback can be used strategically toimprove government performance, and provides apath forward for cities looking to begin leveragingcitizen input in a similar fashion.

Data-Smart City Solutions explores how Boulder, Colorado is building new tools and developing

data-driven processes to foster public engagement

Project on State Innovation

Project on County Innovation

November 5–6, 2015The inaugural gathering of the Project on State In-novation (PSI) was held at Harvard Kennedy School(HKS) in November. PSI is a new network for guber-natorial chiefs of staff directed by the Ash Center’s

December 16–18, 2015The Ash Center convened the second annual Projecton County Innovation (PCI) meeting at HarvardKennedy School (HKS) in December. PCI is a net-work for county government officials directed by theAsh Center’s Professor Stephen Goldsmith and sup-ported by the National Association of Counties. PCIoffers leading county officials with an unmatchedopportunity to better understand public problemsand find creative solutions in county governmentsacross the United States. The theme of this year’smeeting was “Leveraging Innovation in County Gov-ernment” and was attended by high level county of-ficials and executives from 20 of the largest countiesacross the country, along with philanthropic andstakeholder partners. HKS Senior Lecturer in PublicLeadership Ronald Heifetz delivered the keynote ad-dress. PCI members discussed creating public value,service delivery in an era of declining resources,community-based resources to justice-involvedyoung adults, and the importance of leadership indealing with complex high-cost mandates such ascollaborative technology projects. Speakers includedMark Moore, HKS professor and faculty director ofthe Innovations in Government Program; Laurie Gar-duque, Director of Justice Reform at the MacArthurFoundation; Harry Spence, Massachusetts Trial CourtAdministrator; and Julie Boatright Wilson, HKS Sen-ior Lecturer in Social Policy.

15th Convening of the Project on Municipal Innovation

March 17–19, 2016The Project on Municipal Innovation (PMI) met forthe 15th time at Harvard Kennedy School in March.PMI is comprised of chiefs of staff, deputy mayors,and policy directors from the nation’s 45 largest andmost creative cities. In partnership with Living Cities,the Ash Center convenes two in-person meetingseach year for PMI members. Ash Center staff andHKS students document these conversations to cap-ture and share best practices, encouraging replica-tion across the network.

The theme of the March 2016 convening was“Leadership, Courageous Followership, and Impera-tive Partnerships.” PMI members discussed theunique role that the chief of staff plays in managingboth the mayor and the bureaucracy of city hall, thepotential posed by social impact bonds and pay-for-success financing schemes, and the means bywhich behavioral economics insights can translateto substantive policy items. The convening featureda keynote discussion at the John F. Kennedy Presi-dential Library between Matthew McClarty, chief ofstaff to President Bill Clinton, and Andrew Card,chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

Professor Stephen Goldsmith and supported by theNational Governors Association. PSI provides leadingstate officials with a unique environment to sharechallenges and innovative solutions in state govern-ments across the United States. The theme of theconvening was “Governors’ Chiefs of Staff: Leverag-ing Change, Managing for Results, Improving Lives”and it brought together governors’ chiefs of stafffrom 19 states from across the country, plus the ter-ritory of Guam, along with philanthropic and stake-holder partners. Candy Crowley, former anchor andChief Political Correspondent for CNN, delivered thekeynote address. PSI members had in-depth conver-sations on the emerging role of the chief operatingofficer in state government, using big data and evi-dence to solve critical problems, the importance ofleadership, and being prepared to lead your state intimes of crisis. Speakers included Bob Behn, HKSSenior Lecturer in Public Policy; Regina Kunkle, VicePresident of SAP Public Services; Mitch Weiss, SeniorLecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Busi-ness School; and Mark Price, US Public Sector Leaderat Deloitte Consulting.



IN THE FIELD

Student FocusA Lifelong Learner and Traveler: Roy and Lila Ash FellowPriscilla Lee

Priscilla Lee MPA 2016 holds up her phone displayinga picture of a beaming mom in a bright blue head-scarf holding her newborn son. “This is Decca andIsaac,” she says. “I took these last week when I vis-ited them in the hospital.”*

Decca, Lee explained, faced countless obstaclesto starting a family. She was born in Somalia andlived much of her life on the move or in refugeecamps before coming to the US where she was sep-arated from her family for years. Decca met Leewhen she was enrolled in an English for Speakers ofOther Languages (ESOL) class at the CommunityLearning Center in Cambridge where Lee was ateacher and administrator.

“When I met Decca she was very much alone,”Lee says. “Then, as now, much of her paycheck goesto supporting family members still abroad. Weoften talked about what she wanted to do with herlife, and being in her late 30s what she really want-ed was to have a baby, and the challenges beforeher were numerous. Seeing her holding Isaac wasone of those wonderful miracle moments.”

During her long career developing and teachingeducational programs for immigrants, Lee has seenstudents like Decca through celebrations and mile-stones, setbacks and disappointments, holidays,and graduations. “You’re never just a teacher,” shesays. “You’re a learner with them. I’ve approachedmy own life choices with an equanimity gainedthrough the experiences of others.”

The Community Learning Center where Leeworked for 25 years serves new immigrants as wellas those in need of adult education. Twenty-threestaff members, an equal number of part-timeinstructors, and a cadre of volunteers provideinstruction in the areas of ESOL, HiSET (high schoolequivalency testing), US citizenship, workplacetraining, and college prep. Students are assigned anadvisor who helps them set goals, gauge progress,and seek additional resources to support theirendeavors.

The student demographics of the Learning Cen-ter reflect the diversity of Cambridge’s immigrantcommunity, creating an atmosphere that Leebelieves is particularly valuable. “In our beginningESOL classes there might be 11 nationalities among15 students,” she says. “You see the walls of ‘thosepeople’ come down pretty quickly and within a fewweeks everyone is learning and hanging outtogether. It’s incredible to witness the diversitycoming together. People of different ethnicities,ages, and gender sharing resources and buildingsocial networks… it’s empowering.”

In many ways, the act of bridging boundaries

across language and culture has always been a partof Priscilla’s life. Her parents emigrated from Chinaand her mother worked as a math teacher, instillingin her an appreciation for learning and a constantcuriosity about other cultures. “In high school, Itraveled to South America with a group called Ami-gos de las Americas and that’s when the travel bugreally kicked in,” she said.

“Being the only Asian family in a predominatelywhite community, I always felt like an outsider, sotraveling to a country where I didn’t look like any-one or speak the language was already familiar. Itwas like I had discovered a skill I didn’t know I had— a comfort in being different. Those early experi-ences also led me to realize the rewards of deliver-ing public and human service.”

After graduating from Mount Holyoke Collegewith an anthropology degree, Lee traveled acrossEurope, working technical jobs in a pewter work-shop and a fine arts foundry. She then headed toAsia and taught ESOL for several years in Japanbefore moving to Thailand where she volunteeredto work with teams of teachers, preparing Cambo-dian, Lao and Hmong refugees for a transition toAmerican life. “My parents came to the US whentheir country was in turmoil,” she said. “I was gladto be in a position to help people who had alsobeen displaced.”

In September, Lee entered Harvard KennedySchool as the Ash Center’s Roy and Lila Ash Fellowin recognition of her work empowering vulnerablepopulations through education and supportingtheir full participation in society. She is takingcourses in negotiation, leadership, ethics, and pub-

lic policy, while exploring international career pathsafter graduation including a possible return to workwith refugees.

After years of teaching and working to supportothers, Lee has time to reflect on her vocationalchoices and what it means to give back. Her aca-demic advisor is Senior Lecturer in Public PolicyMarshall Ganz and she took his course “Public Nar-rative: Self. Us. Now” in the fall, which requires stu-dents to examine their personal histories andexplore how they can be harnessed to advancesocial change. “It’s been a challenging course,” Leesays. “Opening up to my peers has been painful attimes. I’ve worked with immigrants and refugeesand marginalized populations. I’ve healed myself bydoing healing work. I think that’s something thatmakes sense: Someone helped me, so I’m going toreturn the favor.”

Lee values the diversity and breadth of expert-ise present in the HKS community. “There’s anurgency to spending a year at the Kennedy School,”she says. “My classmates have such a wealth ofexperience and insight that I feel excited aboutmaking authentic connections quickly. One of thebenefits of being at HKS is knowing I’ll be tappedinto a network of people from all over the worldwhom I can later call for advice and they’ll help meout; not because they’re financially motivated, butbecause they’re people who care. It’s a vibrantplace and I’m very proud to be able to learn andcontribute here.”

* The names of Lee’s student and the student’s sonhave been changed to protect their privacy.

Roy and Lila Ash Fellow Priscilla Lee

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IN THE FIELD

ances with government officials. Heintroduced them to the OpenGovFoundation’s online policymakingsoftware, Madison, and had themexamine how it could be used to levelthe playing field between citizens andgovernment insiders by allowingthem to collaborate and communi-cate on policy decisions via the Inter-net. After discussing potential usecases and opportunities for Madisonas a lobbying tool, the students pro-vided Kraft with valuable feedback onthe software, so that it could betterserve citizens wishing to use thepower of technology to engage withtheir government.

“There’s a genuine hunger for moreonline civic engagement,” said Kraft.“At Harvard, everyone in the work-shop immediately grasped Madison,how it works, and the power of openonline policymaking. That enabled usto spend the bulk of our time togeth-er not on the concepts or the back-story, but on specific use cases andopportunities and ways to make Madi-son even better. It was a productive,informative, and inspiring evening.”

“Living one’s civic life on the Internetis rapidly becoming as normal andnatural as using technology in one’spersonal and work lives,” said SeamusKraft, cofounder of the OpenGovFoundation and one of the recipientsof the Ash Center’s inaugural Technol-ogy and Democracy Fellowships, lead-ing a workshop at the Center on March8. Entitled “Learn to be Your Own Lob-byist (And Love it!),” the event waspart of the Technology and Democ-racy Seminar Series.

The series brings exemplary prac-titioners from the worlds of technolo-gy, policy, and government togetherwith Kennedy School students forworkshops on a broad range of topicsrelated to civic technology. Throughparticipation in the series, studentsgain practical skills and a deeperunderstanding of how to make use oftechnology to facilitate interactionbetween the public and government.The fellowship is mutually beneficial:by leading the workshops and devel-oping a community of learning withHKS students, the fellows will broad-en and hone their communicationsskills and receive collaborative sup-port as they develop projects in theirrespective fields that seek to improvethe quality of democratic governance.

During the workshop, Kraftengaged HKS students in an interac-tive discussion on using technologyto give more citizens a meaningfulway to share their views and griev-

Lester Ang, Derek Pham, and Trung TranStrategic and Sustainable Develop-ment in the Lower Mekong RegionJennifer Angarita and Marina ZhavoronkovaFinancial Stability for Low-incomeCommunities: Assessing the Impact ofIntegrated ServicesPeter Bacon and Helena Legarda-Herranz *Limiting Nuclear Escalation in a Warbetween US and ChinaJane Bai *Assessment of DRGs Reform at PilotHospitals in China Pitichoke Chulapamornsri and Sarah TesarInnovating in Inclusive Finance andParticipatory Governance Jack Gao and Diana Zhou *Scaling Up Electric Vehicles in ChinaNaisi Gao and Yameng Hu *Empowering Migrant Children byYouth Public Leadership Development:An Evaluation of EduRunner SummerCamp in ChinaAmri IlmmaImproving the Design and Implemen-tation of PKH Conditional Cash Trans-fer Program in IndonesiaAneth Kasabele and Anne Ong LopezAddressing the Challenge of ‘Formal’Financial Savings and Use in Low-In-come Tanzania HouseholdsErica KellyDisaster Preparedness and Responsein Nepal: Rethinking Military and CivilAgency Communication and Coordi-nationCarolyne MakumiGender and Sustainable Livelihoodsamong Internally Displaced Persons inAzerbaijanWei Meng *Global Value Chains and China’s Up-grade Strategies

Loren NewmanClosing the Digital Divide in Los Ange-les: An Exemplar for Enabling InternetAccess Throughout Urban AmericaSofia QuesadaIncreasing the Adoption of Conflict-Sensitive Programming within USAIDNorma Torres MendozaExamining the effects of Mi FamiliaVota - Emerging Latino/a Leaders Fel-lowship on Student Civic Engagementin Houston, Dallas, San Antonio (TX),Fresno, Riverside, Modesto (CA)Erik Torstensson and Sarah ZhangEmergency Media CommunicationStrategies during EbolaKoji UkaiGNH-Based Development: Policy Rec-ommendations for Private SectorGrowth Consistent with BhutaneseValuesMingjie Yuan *The rural commercial banks’ imple-mentation of Basel regulatory frame-work in China

* Travel grant provided by the Ash Cen-ter’s China Programs

Student FocusTravel Grants Support Student Research

Each year, the Ash Center provides travel grants to HKS students conductingmaster’s thesis field research for their Policy Analysis Exercise or Second YearPolicy Analysis. Beyond financial support, the Ash Center’s deep connection togovernment and the broader world of practice allow us to provide in-depth sup-port to students as they complete these projects. This winter, the Center sup-ported 18 students on projects that are advised by Ash-affiliated faculty or thatexplore topics aligned with the Center’s research and programmatic agendas.Through the Program on China and Globalization Fund and the Hui Fund forGenerating Powerful Ideas, the Center’s China Programs also provided travelfunding for nine Harvard students travelling to China for research projects overthe winter break.

New Ash Center Workshop Connects Students to the Civic Tech Scene

C

ABOVE

Seamus Kraft, cofounder of the

OpenGov Foundation, speaks

with students at a workshop in

the Center’s Technology and

Democracy Seminar Series



RESEARCH BRIEF

Fellows FocusMeet Our New Fellows

Carnegie FellowshipThrough a grant from the CarnegieCorporation of New York, the AshCenter began supporting promisingArab social scientists in the fall of2014. The Carnegie scholars explorepossible options for effective gover-nance across a range of policy do-mains in this dangerously troubledpart of the world. The Center's springsemester Carnegie Fellows are MazenHassan, assistant professor of politicalscience, Cairo University, and SarahMansour, assistant professor of econom-ics, Cairo University. Hassan receivedhis PhD from University of Oxford andhis research interests include electoralsystems, political parties, party sys-tems, and democratic transitions inEgypt. Mansour received her PhD fromUniversity of Warwick and works on is-sues related to political economy, pub-lic economics, and finance.

Democracy ProgramThe Ash Center’s Democracy Fellow-ships support predoctoral and post-doctoral scholars as well aspractitioners in research areas relatedto democratic governance. This se-mester, Sean Gray and Kathryn Pererajoined the Center. Gray received hisPhD in political science from the Uni-versity of British Columbia and his re-search interests include contemporarydemocratic theory, the welfare state,and political representation. Perera ischief executive of Movement forChange and her research focus in-cludes participatory politics, politicalphilosophy, and key moral challengesof representative office.

Rajawali Foundation Institutefor AsiaThe Rajawali Fellows Program allowspredoctoral and postdoctoral scholarsas well as practitioners the freedom topursue independent research projectson public policy issues related to Asiawith the help of the Ash Center’s Ra-jawali Foundation Institute for Asiaand other Harvard resources. The Cen-ter welcomed five new Rajawali Fel-lows this semester:

CHENG Yufei, Beijing branch of theBaoshang BankDENG Yusong, Deputy Director, Instituteof Market Economy, Development Re-search Center, PRC State CouncilJuan Fernandez, Professor of Manage-ment, China Europe International Busi-ness SchoolJIANG Yunyun, Associate Professor ofEconomics, Peking UniversityTIAN Jietang, Deputy Director forTechno-Economic Research Depart-ment, Development Research Center,PRC State Council

Lee Kuan Yew FellowsThe HKS Singapore Program adminis-ters the Lee Kuan Yew Fellows Pro-gram, which brings a group of up to25 midcareer students to campus for

one semester each year. Coming fromvarious countries throughout Asia,these students are candidates for theMaster in Public Management degreeat the Lee Kuan Yew School of PublicPolicy at the National University ofSingapore. They spend their secondsemester as full-time students in resi-dence at HKS to complement theirtraining in Singapore. This semester,we welcomed 16 fellows:Nurayuni Zainal Abidin, Ministry of For-eign Affairs, MalaysiaMuhammad Asif, Customs Intelligence &Investigations, PakistanGenri Goto, J-Device Corporation, JapanNoreen Boots G. Gragasin, Civil ServiceCommission, PhilippinesAishath Malika Ibrahim, CommunicationsAuthority, Maldives

Warangkana Imudom, Bank of ThailandSardar Kabdulov, Almaty City Adminis-tration, KazakhstanMuhammad Kashif Mushtaq Kanju, PoliceService, PakistanWong Poh Fern Karen, Spore ArmedForces, MINDEF, SingaporeVu Quynh Le, Public ProcurementAgency, Ministry of Planning & Invest-ment, VietnamMa Ensheng, Trade Remedy and Investi-gation Bureau, Ministry of Commerce,ChinaSaifudin Hamjuri bin Samsuri, Civil ServiceCollege, SingaporePadmaja Siripurapu, Ministry of Finance,IndiaCardona Ma Victoria Dela Victoria, Commis-sion on Human Rights of the Philip-pinesLim Han Yong, Spore Armed Forces,MINDEF, SingaporeHtun Zaw, Ministry of Planning & Devel-opment, Myanmar

Fellows joining the Ash Center in January 2016

Lee Kuan Yew Fellows attend welcome reception at the Ash Center. Pictured here with

Faculty Chair Professor Steve Kelman



IN THE NEWS

Event Snapshots

Singapore at 50: Stakeholders and ChangemakersFall 2015–Spring 2016Stakeholders and Changemakerswas a series of discussions organized by South-east Asian HKS students to examine issues facing Singapore and Southeast Asiamore broadly. The first discussion, held in November, focused on how Singaporehas confronted social integration challenges in the past, and the challenges andsolutions to social fault lines on the horizon. In February, the discussion ad-dressed “Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Singapore.” And, in April, “Promisesand Pitfalls: ASEAN 2015 in Review” discussed the issues surrounding a proposedCode of Conduct for the South China Sea and the creation of the ASEAN Eco-nomic Community. The series was sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Cen-ter, the Ash Center’s HKS Singapore Program, and the Weatherhead Center forInternational Affairs.

Myanmar After the Elections: The Challenges AheadDecember 2, 2015Tommy Vallely, the senior advisor for mainland Southeast Asia at the Ash Center,was joined by senior economist David Dapice and Hla Hla Win, Ford FoundationMason Student Fellow at the Ash Center and 2016 midcareer MPA candidate atHKS, for a discussion on Myanmar’s landmark November 2015 elections. Panelistsdiscussed how opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi’s decisivevictory at the polls has the potential to reshape Myanmar’s future but outstand-ing issues concerning rising ethnic tensions, China’s economic interests in thecountry, and the military’s role in governing Myanmar continue to loom.

Talk Back: 1984 Discussion Series Hosted by the A.R.T andthe Ash CenterFebruary–March, 2016The Ash Center continues its partnership with the American Repertory Theater(A.R.T.) to bring the insights and expertise of its faculty to help deepen and illu-minate public discourse among nontraditional audiences off-campus. This winterwe co-organized a series of four “Talk Back” discussions after performances ofa new, intense stage adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984. In an interview-styleformat, faculty spoke with A.R.T. Artistic Programs Associate Robert Duffley onquestions of surveillance, totalitarianism, and the role of technology in popularuprisings. About 100 audience members stayed after the performance for eachTalk Back discussion.

Our faculty discussed with the audience how these and other themes thatOrwell explored in his novel—in which Big Brother uses surveillance, technolo-gy, and torture to control reality by dominating its citizens’ thoughts and mem-ory—are still pertinent today. James Waldo, Gordon McKay Professor of thePractice of Computer Science and former chief technical officer of Harvard Uni-versity, examined the intersection of cybersecurity and privacy today. Academ-ic Dean Archon Fung discussed control and secrecy in the United States.Merilee Grindle, Edward S. Mason Professor of International Development andformer director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies,addressed the retrieval of memory during an authoritarian period in LatinAmerica. Finally, Ash Center Director Tony Saich reflected on new social mediain China.

Will Renewables Renew Democracy?February 10, 2016Renewable energies are at the epicenter of a green revolution heralded by inno-vative local governments in conjunction with parts of the corporate and tech-nology sectors. Renewable energies not only represent an immense opportunityfor both the Global North and South to cut emissions but they also have the po-tential to mobilize a wide range of actors interested in clean energy. This includes

HKS students attend the first Singapore at 50: Stakeholders and Changemakers event in November 2015

Ash Center Director Tony Saich and Robert Duffley, A.R.T. Publications and Artistic Programs Associate, discussed new social media in China after a stage production of 1984

Tommy Vallely, the senior advisor for mainland Southeast Asia at the Ash Center, discusses Myanmar’s future



IN THE NEWS

everyday citizens who want to pay less and consume wisely, businesses that an-ticipate the benefits of investing in expanding renewable energy markets, andcities dedicated to “smart government” initiatives creating innovative green so-lutions to carbon producing economic activities. Muriel Rouyer, Adjunct Profes-sor of Public Policy, lead a panel discussion on these topics with practitionersfrom the public and private sectors who are dedicated to using green energy ininnovative ways to address the urgent issue of climate change.

Panelists included Karine Dognin-Sauze, Vice-President of Greater Lyon,who presented HIKARI, an innovative project on “positive energy building”developed jointly by France and Japan. Stephen Pike, Interim CEO of the Mas-sachusetts Clean Energy Center, and Shaun Chapman, Vice President, Policy &Electric Markets at SolarCity, also joined the panel. The panel covered a numberof important questions, including what renewable energy policies and practicesalready exist? Why have some been successful, while others have failed? Whoare the primary actors of change? And what opportunities exist for citizens toparticipate in climate action? The Honorable Gerard Araud, French Ambassadorto the United States, gave a special welcome and kicked off the event by dis-cussing the recent 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference.

Black Politics and Gun Violence February 17, 2016In February, the Ash Center hosted a conversation entitled “Black Politics andGun Violence,” as part of its Race and American Politics seminar series. MarthaBiondi, chair of the Department of African American Studies at NorthwesternUniversity, spoke on black perspectives on gun control and gun violence sincethe late 1960s, exploring viewpoints from the era of black liberation to the age of crack, deindustrialization, structural unemployment, and escalating gun deaths.

Biondi described how African American leaders, elected officials, clergymembers, and journalists have been torn between supporting gun laws forracial self-defense and supporting gun restrictions as an anti-crime measure.Illustrating the scope and scale of the modern gun violence phenomenon, Biondi offered several sobering statistics including the fact that homicide is the leading cause of death for black men ages 15 to 34. “Guns are bound upwith the history of racial oppression in the United States,” she said. “But somany discussions of gun culture and gun regulation ignore or marginalize raceand racism.”

Leah Wright Rigueur, assistant professor of public policy at HarvardKennedy School, moderated the discussion. The event was cosponsored by theMalcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy and the Hutchins Center for African &African American Research.

Global Tax Policy Conference March 9–11, 2016Following on the success of the inaugural conference in 2013, the Irish Tax Insti-tute and the Ash Center joined together again to host the second Global Tax Policy Conference in Dublin Castle, Ireland in March. Titled “New Rules for aNew Era,” the conference came at a critical juncture in the implementation of a new global tax framework and looked at the impact of new rules on countriesand companies. Speakers included leading figures from the EU, the OECD, the US, the IMF, and treasury departments globally as well as international business organizations, universities, the tax profession, and multinationals. The conference was attended by policymakers, legislators, members of govern-ment, revenue authorities, finance ministries, and companies from over 30 countries. The Ash Center’s participation was led by Adjunct Lecturer in PublicPolicy Jay Rosengard.

Leah Wright Rigueur, HKS Assistant Professor of Public Policy, and Martha Biondi, Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University, discuss gun violence

Jay Rosengard, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, speaks at the Global Tax Policy Conference

Gerard Araud, French Ambassador to the US, and Muriel Rouyer, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy, discuss renewable energy


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The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation strives to make the world a better place by advancing excellence and innovation in governance and public policy through research, education, and public discussion. By training the very best leaders, developing powerful new ideas, and disseminating innovative solutions and insti-tutional reforms, the Center’s goal is to meet the profound challenges facing the world’s citizens.

Ash Center Communiqué Spring 2016

Documents

Transcript of Ash Center Communiqué Spring 2016