Episode
Hahrie Han of Johns Hopkins University on What Moves People to Act Together
- Podcast
- The Art of Association
- Published
- Jun 24, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2673
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Summary
Hahrie Han is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, where she served as the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute and is the Faculty Director of the P3 Research Lab . She joins The Art of Association podcast to talk with host Daniel Stid about her research on belonging, civic action, and transformational community organizing. Hahrie shares how she became interested in understanding why people engage in civic life and what she has learned in her research. She also reflects on the story behind her latest book, Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church . Through years of embedded research among participants in an evangelical megachurch’s racial justice initiative, Hahrie gained deeper insight into the principles of transformational civic life — both for communities and for the individuals invested in the work. Hahrie and Daniel also consider how artificial intelligence might advance research on civic initiatives. They conclude by discussing some interlocutors upon whom Hahrie draws to challenge her assumptions. Chapters (1:48): Hahrie’s experience receiving the MacArthur Fellowship (4:37): What first drew Hahrie to study why and how people engage in civic life (10:32): Key takeaways from Hahrie’s early research, including “belonging comes before belief” and its relationship to transactional and transformational organizing (16:16): The Agora Institute’s Mapping the Modern Agora project and what it has found (20:46): The story of Crossroads Church and its Undivided racial justice initiative (25:25): Three core ideas supporting Crossroads Church’s Undivided initiative — and effective civic engagement more broadly (33:07): Hahrie’s mixed methods research and what she learned through being emb…