Democracy
Democratic decline in the U.S. and Europe is weakening the transatlantic relationship and undermining its influence around the world. America and its European allies need to recalibrate their values and practicies at home in order to serve as beacons to aspiring democracies abroad. But disruptions to our democratic traditions keep emerging: from new technologies changing the way we communicate and work to pandemics and economic shocks. Our work analyzes how these disruptions are playing out, and it will be up to civil society, lawmakers, and the people to prepare our democracies for the future.
Uncivil War | U.S. Elections Under Siege
Americans are losing faith in democracy. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, our documentary Uncivil War explores three factors eroding democracy in the United States: gerrymandering, voter suppression, and disinformation. The film unravels a web of threats to American elections, separates truth from fiction, and exposes a hidden war against democracy itself.
Graphic Images
For this third edition of the series, we decided to turn everything you’ve come to expect from Disrupting Democracy on its head. Through the use of carefully constructed algorithms by our partners at the Institute for Competitiveness, we have collected more than 10,000 data points that are the driving forces behind the volatility in democracy today, converting them into a compendium of visualizations that provides a degree of depth that will take you well beyond any written analysis.
How to Fix Democracy
Since its origins, democracy has been a work in progress; today, many question its resilience. The Bertelsmann Foundation and Humanity in Action have teamed up with Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future, to launch this video and podcast series exploring practical responses to the threats facing democracies around the world.
Disrupting Democracy Vol. II
In 2018, for our second instalment of the Disrupting Democracy project we turned our attention to elections. From the rise of Five Star and Lega in Italy to U.S. Democrats’ success winning the U.S. House of Representatives, and from to Morena and Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s victory in Mexico to a cultural and linguistic divide in Latvia, Disrupting Democracy Vol. II: Election Series recorded how technology was put to work to make a difference at the ballot box.
Disrupting Democracy Vol. I
Beginning January 2017, the Bertelsmann Foundation embarked on a journey to explore how digital innovation impacts democracies and societies around the world in a series called "Disrupting Democracy." In volume one, we focused on key challenges that have emerged as a result of technological disruption from the rival capitals of Washington and Havana, the bustling streets of New Delhi, the dynamic tech startups in Tel Aviv, and the efficient order of Berlin.
Updates
Voter Suppression
How Making It Harder to Vote Undermines Democracy in the United States
The Boogaloo Ballad Of Henry Graves
Disinformation and Online Radicalization in the Age of COVID-19
What is Gerrymandering?
How Politicians in the U.S. Pick Their Voters
Cyber Democracy
Regulating the 21st Century Internet
As the debate regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act highlights, tech platforms, left to their own devices, are in many ways helping to codify what is increasingly an internet bifurcated by political and philosophical beliefs: you’re either in the “Dorsey” or “Zuckerberg” camp.
Germany’s Basic Law
An Introduction to the German Government's Founding Document
Remote Control
Legislating in an Empty Chamber
The outbreak of COVID-19 has changed the habits of ordinary citizens the world over. We don masks and gloves in supermarkets, and follow one-way arrows up and down the aisles in search of that elusive box of pasta. We interact with pixelated versions of our families, friends and colleagues on...
How the US Presidential Election Works
A Primer on the U.S. Presidential Election from Primaries to Election Day
Third Parties Won’t Win the White House
But They Could Decide the Election
Given the polarized state of American politics, it can be easy to assume that Americans have a binary decision to make this November. They do not.