Our curated library is packed full of knowledge, know-how and best practices in the fields of democracy and culture.
Read the latest on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and other critical world events in our library of democratic content. Gathered from trusted international sources, the curated library brings you a rich resource of articles, opinion pieces and more on democracy and culture to keep you updated.
Take a look at curated library below and search by keyword (i.e. Ukraine or authoritarianism) or format (i.e. article or report) and find a tailored list of resources on the topics you're most interested in.
Supporting Deliberative Systems with Referendums and Initiatives
“This article builds on this literature to argue that referendums and initiatives can serve deliberative systems by incentivising representatives to engage in recursive representation – namely, conversation-like exchange at the mass level with the represented deemed essential to deliberative systems” (el-Wakil, 2020).
A Turbulent Decade: The Changes in Chinese Popular Attitudes Toward Democracy
This paper “investigates the changes in popular attitudes toward democracy” where “Results show that online discussion around democracy has decreased and voices questioning democracy have become pronounced” and “increasing doubts about democracy are not necessarily translated into a strong authoritarian legitimacy.” (Zhang 2020)
Engaging Public Spaces: A Review And Toolkit
This report reviews “existing research on downtown revitalization, equitable economic development and public space activation to investigate” the question “As communities across the country work to revitalize downtowns and neighborhoods, which metrics indicate progress or success?” (Knight Foundation, 2020).
Measuring Progress Toward Downtown Revitalization
"Knight commissioned Community Science to conduct a review of existing research on downtown revitalization, equitable economic development and public space activation to investigate these questions. The purpose of this report is to share learnings about what to measure in order to support similar efforts, post-COVID-19 recovery and steps to eliminate racial inequities in United States cities" (Knight Foundation, 2020).
"The Whole of Liberal Democracy is In Grave Danger..."
“In other words, there is one more item to add to the constantly growing list of factors driving polarization in America: Those on the left and right appear to use substantially different cognitive processes to interpret events in the world around them, large and small” (Thomas B. Edsall, 2020).
Under a new national-security law, Hong Kong is already a changed city
“Hong kongers had long worried that the Communist Party would transform the territory by stealth into just another Chinese city. In the past few days, armed with a new national-security law which it imposed on Hong Kong on June 30th, it has been doing so brazenly...Hong Kong is changing fast” (The Economist, 2020).
Lift Every Voice: The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting
This report proposes universal civic duty voting as a necessary step toward full electoral participation and thus wider and more comprehensive and inclusive representation in the body of voters and resulting issue decisions and opinions. The authors also claim that civic duty voting will challenge contemporary voter suppression efforts.
Does Zuckerberg Understand How the Right to Free Speech Works?
“Far too often Mr. Zuckerberg has chosen to allow posts spewing bigotry and lies to remain on Facebook in the name of free speech. Now, a thorough and damning audit of the company, two years in the making and solicited by Facebook, confirms those fears” (Greg Bensinger, 2020).
Why Do the Rich Have So Much Power?
“Huge disparities in income and wealth translate into comparable disparities in political influence. To see how this works, let’s look at a fairly recent example: the budgetary Grand Bargain that almost happened in 2011” (Paul Krugman, 2020).
How China Scammed Hong Kong
“After many years of rejecting the people of Hong Kong’s persistent demands for genuine universal suffrage and other rights, China...chose the eve of July 1... to pass a draconian national security law that will forever harm Hong Kong’s political freedoms and hobble its economic relations with the rest of the world” (Yi-Zheng Lian, 2020).
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