On Thursday, Harvard professor Danielle Allen delivered the 31st Annual Hesburgh Lecture in Ethics and Public Policy as part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum “What Do We Owe Each Other?” Allen, director of both the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and the Democratic Knowledge Project, was invited to speak on her experiences as a prominent political philosophy professor and as a nonprofit leader. Allen previously visited campus in September 2023 to speak on her book “Justice by Means of Democracy.”
University President Fr. Robert Dowd kicked off the talk by acknowledging the work of former University President Fr. Theodore Hesburgh in shaping the Notre Dame that students know today. He also introduced Dr. Asher Kaufman, the director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Kaufman expanded on the history of the Notre Dame Forum’s place on campus as he highlighted a list of notable past speakers. These included multiple Nobel Prize honorees and former President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos. In his closing remarks, Kaufman introduced Allen.
“[Allen] received the honor ... for internationally recognized scholarship in political theory and her commitment to improving democratic practice and civic education. Given the threat [to] democracy around the world, including here in the United States, the relevance of her work to meet challenges within this environment is both timely and critical,” Kaufman said.
The lecture was titled “Bringing Democracy Back from the Brink: A Strategic Vision and a Call to Action.” Allen’s presentation focused on the need for what she calls “democracy renovation.”
Allen attributed her interest in and dedication to the topic of democracy as a matter of family inheritance. She explained that one of her grandfathers aided in founding the first National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter in 1940s northern Florida, and her other grandfather marched with suffragettes on Boston Common in 1917.
“Across generations, we in our family, my extended family, have taught about the importance of taking responsibility, not only for your own individual life or even for your family’s life, but also for the life of your community and expecting to play a role as a responsible participant in shaping with others the possibilities that we all have for healthy communities. That has meant a lot to me my whole life,” Allen said.
Allen emphasized the challenges posed to democracy by rapid technological change.
“One of the things that we’re watching right now in the world is that autocratic systems, where we’re seeing an increasing number of those, are in some sense moving faster to master new technologies and to use them for their governing purposes. We’ve struggled in democracies to fully understand the full impact of technology and how to make sure our governing institutions can actually handle it,” Allen said.
Bringing up concerns such as the Trump administration’s flurry of executive orders on DEI and education as well as the integration of DOGE into the government, Allen argued that good administrative checks, balances and diplomacy faced an agenda of rapid uprooting and monarchical-based operations.
She also decried the rapid rise in polarization in American politics.
“One thing that I find moving and hard about teaching in college these days is that you guys have never seen anything other than this. It breaks my heart truly. In terms of the history of polarization, it really starts in the ’90s as the Republican Party polarized first and then the Democrats followed,” she said.
She added that the internet and social media have exacerbated polarization.
Throughout her lecture on political ideologies and the enaction of them within the government and citizens’ lives, Allen expressed the need for personal action and education. She closed by encouraging audience members to get involved in democracy, especially at the state level.
