Harvard Gazette

Donating money, signing petitions, and sharing views on social media are some of the common ways Americans exercise their civic duty. Hahrie Han ’97 says they aren’t enough.

The professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, who delivered the first of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Paine Hall last week, said revitalizing American democracy will require an additional ingredient. She argued that today’s citizens are not given enough opportunity for collective activities that cultivate feelings of belonging and agency.

“Part of what we’ve lost in 21st-century America is a particular form of collective action that teaches people the commitments and capabilities of power-sharing that are necessary in pluralistic democracy,” said Han, who directs Johns Hopkins’ SNF Agora Institute and P3 Research Lab.