DEMOCRACY & GOVERNANCE

Scholars call for universal voter participation in U.S. elections

In a new report, 25 experts in politics, elections, and civil rights make the case for universal civic duty voting—that is, mandatory participation in elections—in the United States. “Lift Every Voice: The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting,” is the culmination of an 18-month effort. The authors argue that among other benefits, universal participation in elections would increase political involvement of communities of color that have long been excluded by voter suppression measures. “We see voting as a civic responsibility no less important than jury duty,” the authors write. The working group that produced the report was convened jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, and included Professors Archon Fung, who leads the Ash Center’s democracy projects, and Cornell William Brooks, director of the School’s Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice. The working group’s co-chairs, Ash Center Senior Fellow Miles Rapoport and journalist E.J. Dionne Jr., say the COVID-19 pandemic and the struggle for racial justice have heightened the need for greater voter access to the polls this November. The report concludes with a checklist of actions needed at federal, state, and local levels to move toward universal participation.

DEMOCRACY & GOVERNANCE

The pandemic poses grave risks for global democracy, but also upsides

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated fast-evolving challenges to democracies as well as an array of unexpected opportunities for civic institutions, according to three Harvard Kennedy School scholars who study democracy, social movements, and communication. Professors Matthew Baum, Erica Chenoweth, and Archon Fung explored this froth of threats and opportunities in a Dean’s Discussion webinar hosted by HKS Dean Douglas Elmendorf. Baum cited “a widespread emerging deficit in public trust in democratic institutions” that could lead to “a significant crisis of confidence.” Chenoweth focused on the explosion of creative protests during the pandemic, what she called “forms of supercharged social capital and very-high-stakes community engagement where people are practicing active concern for others.” Fung stressed the blend of local and state-level decentralized action that has emerged in many countries, adding: “I think the test is going to be, which communities were able to muster that inclusive, evidence-based, problem-solving, all-hands-on-deck community.”

POLITICS

Reflecting on the dangers of “meta-narratives” in news coverage of candidates

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Thomas Patterson, who has studied news coverage of elections for decades, argues that journalists’ “meta-narratives” about candidates can deeply affect voters’ perceptions. Patterson is writing a series of research-based articles examining how journalists are covering the 2020 election. In his first article, Patterson says these sometimes simplistic meta-narratives are especially influential among those who follow the news closely. In his second commentary, he writes about the danger of journalists building candidate narratives around poll results. Patterson is sharing his insights on Journalist’s Resource, the website he helped launch at HKS’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. He is well known for his research assessing campaign coverage; in the 2000 race, he saw that reporters adopted meta-narratives about candidates that became all but impossible to shake off. He found that the trend persisted into the 2016 race, when “Hillary Clinton was portrayed as distant and robotic, and less than trustworthy.” And it is happening again in coverage of the current race, Patterson says, with the meta-narrative of a gaffe-prone Joe Biden.

Upcoming: “What does it mean to protest today? Media Manipulation and the Movement for Black Lives,” Discussion, Shorenstein Center, Wed. July 29, noon–1:30 p.m. EDT.

IN THE NEWS

• Cornell Brooks on Rep. John Lewis and George Floyd [Cornell William Brooks] CTV

• Love is medicine for fear [Arthur Brooks] The Atlantic

• An interview with Dr. Asim Ijaz Khwaja, professor of international finance and development at the Harvard Kennedy School [Asim Ijaz Khwaja] Business Recorder

• Why some companies leapt to support the COVID-19 response [Jane Nelson] World Economic Forum

• Abolish the Trump Administration, not Homeland Security [Juliette Kayyem] The Atlantic

• Voting: A right or a duty? [Miles Rapoport] Boston Globe