PolicyCast

Hamilton Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, on campus to kick off the America Adelante Conference hosted by the Center for Public Leadership, discusses his advocacy for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, how he thinks about using his celebrity to effect change, and the falling barriers to minority representation in film and television.

Economist Thomas Piketty details the policies he believes will be key to overcoming the wealth inequality illustrated in his seminal 2013 book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” He also discusses the 2018 World Inequality Report, which builds on and updates the data sets first featured in “Capital,” except on a global scale thanks to the involvement of more than one hundred economists around the world. Piketty was on campus to deliver the Wiener Center’s inaugural Stone Lecture on Economic Inequality.

Shorenstein Fellow Dipayan Ghosh joins us again for part two of our extended interview on data privacy, digital advertising, and their effect on our democracies. In this episode, Ghosh moves beyond the Cambridge Analytica scandal to focus on publically available, data-driven advertising tools and how they can be leveraged by politicians and nefarious agents alike to manipulate voters.

As the Cambridge Analytica scandal continues to unfold, Joan Shorenstein Fellow Dipayan Ghosh, who recently left Facebook's Privacy and Public Policy team, joins us for a double-header on data privacy, digital advertising, and their effect on our democracies. In this episode, Ghosh walks through the myriad ways companies like Facebook and Google collect and leverage data to target users, increase engagement, and ultimately sell advertising. He then discusses the challenges inherent in any effort to regulate the industry.

Professor Jane Mansbridge explains why efforts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution have failed in the past, but could now have a real shot at ratification.

Bruce Katz explains what makes cities different from state and national governments, and why that difference has allowed them to thrive while populism and partisanship grip state and national governments. Using Boston, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Copenhagen as examples, Katz illustrates how the unique network effects of cities lead to innovative solutions to public problems. Katz was on campus as a guest of both the Center for Public Leadership and Ash Center.

Tufts Professor Michael Klein explains how he’s using http://www.econofact.org to better inform the broader public about economics. The non-partisan publication features easily-digestible briefs on topical economic issues authored by a network of economists around the country, including HKS Professors David Deming, Jeffrey Frankel, and Mark Shepard.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, a Hauser Visiting Leader at the Center for Public Leadership, describes the years-long process involved with removing four confederate monuments in New Orleans, including statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

HKS Prof. Stephen Goldsmith says technology is enabling cities to radically change the way they operate, and both city workers and citizens stand to benefit. He describes how governments will shed the strict bureaucracies of the 20th century in favor of a distributed model where the city acts as a platform and service providers can be evaluated by outcomes. Goldsmith is the director of the Innovations in American Government Program out of the Kennedy School’s Ash Center, and recently co-authored, alongside Neil Kleiman, the book “A New City O/S - The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance.”

Adam Conner, a spring 2018 fellow at the Institute of Politics, digs into the nuance behind the question many are asking about platforms like Facebook and Twitter, namely: are they good for democracy?