Summary
Carr Center Faculty Danielle Allen shares what she learned from running for governor of Massachusetts with The New Republic on their podcast How to Save a Country.
Danielle Allen, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University and director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics, ran for the 2022 Democratic nomination to be governor of Massachusetts, and spoke with How to Save a Country’s co-hosts, Michael Tomasky and Felicia Wong, to share what she learned about America’s political institutions during her campaign, and what helped shape her decision to run.
Allen explains, “There has to be political equality; that means voice and choice for all, full participation in voting, but also in running for office, in seeing and shaping your community, which is about access to a healthy information ecosystem. It’s also about money in politics and whether or not that’s skewing legislators’ attention, and the like, all those kinds of issues.
“I’m a big advocate for researchers working to co-create research agendas with communities that are affected by a particular problem. Not on high deciding what the most important question is.”
But it’s also about social equality. Do we have a culture and habits of treating each other with mutual respect? Can we name grievances that we have in relationship to each other and redress them when they appear? It’s about what I call 'epistemic egalitarianism.' It’s that learning process I was talking about and recognizing that people who are situated very differently all have things to contribute to trying to solve a problem. I’m a big advocate for researchers working to co-create research agendas with communities that are affected by a particular problem. Not on high deciding what the most important question is.”
Michael and Felicia also talk to Danielle about the policies she advocated, what freedom for all actually looks like, and her most recent book,