Bright Line Watch shares key findings from expert and public surveys on the state of American democracy. READ MORE>

A layman’s guide to understanding what the For the People Act is and why America needs it. READ MORE>

Julie Sandorf of the Charles H. Revson Foundation discusses how pooled funds or giving circles to support local media could make a big difference in the media environment. READ MORE>

Sarah Ruger of Stand Together on why the extremism threatening our democracy’s health calls for a broad-based nonpartisan philanthropic response aimed at slowing the spread of the disease and eventually reversing it, and three places where grant makers can strategically direct their dollars. READ MORE>

Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism--Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times.

But we've been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However as the twentieth century opened, America became--slowly, unevenly, but steadily--more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today's disarray.

In a sweeping overview of more than a century of history, drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an "I" society to a "We" society and then back again. He draws inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, putting us on a path to becoming a society once again based on community. READ MORE>

The Ford Foundation’s Hilary Pennington explores how America can balance movements of reckoning and movements to bridge divides in order to build a truly pluralistic, multi-racial democracy. READ MORE>

Alex Daniels highlights pooled funds making a difference, including 3 in the democracy space. READ MORE>

This outline from Bridge Alliance provides anoverview of the democracy field -- i.e. the current work to promote healthy self-governance. This co-created and community updated outline document combines civic engagement, electoral reform, policy and issue work of the many unique organizations and funders working within the political and civic reform sectors. READ MORE>

For two hundred years, the grand project of liberal internationalism has been to build a world order that is open, loosely rules-based, and oriented toward progressive ideas. Today this project is in crisis, threatened from the outside by illiberal challengers and from the inside by nationalist-populist movements. This timely book offers the first full account of liberal internationalism's long journey from its nineteenth-century roots to today's fractured political moment. Creating an international "space" for liberal democracy, preserving rights and protections within and between countries, and balancing conflicting values such as liberty and equality, openness and social solidarity, and sovereignty and interdependence--these are the guiding aims that have propelled liberal internationalism through the upheavals of the past two centuries. G. John Ikenberry argues that in a twenty-first century marked by rising economic and security interdependence, liberal internationalism--reformed and reimagined--remains the most viable project to protect liberal democracy. READ MORE>

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin--enabling her to predict with uncanny accuracy the recent experience in America. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future. READ MORE>

Our Declaration reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text. Combining a personal account of teaching the Declaration with a vivid evocation of the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen, a political philosopher renowned for her work on justice and citizenship reveals our nation’s founding text to be an animating force that not only changed the world more than two-hundred years ago, but also still can. Challenging conventional wisdom, she boldly makes the case that the Declaration is a document as much about political equality as about individual liberty. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Our Declaration is an “uncommonly elegant, incisive, and often poetic primer on America’s cardinal text”. READ MORE>

"Racism is an existential threat to America," Theodore Johnson declares at the start of his profound and exhilarating book; furthermore, it's a refutation of the American Promise enshrined in our Constitution--that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet corrosive racism has remained ingrained in our society. If we cannot overcome it, Johnson argues, while the United States will remain as a geopolitical entity, the promise that made America unique on Earth will have died.

When the Stars Begin to Fall lays out in compelling, ambitious ways a pathway to the national solidarity necessary to overcome racism. READ MORE>

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism.

From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. READ MORE>

David French examines the true dimensions and dangers of America’s widening ideological gap, and what could happen if we don't take steps toward bridging it - as well as what it would take to reestablish national unity. READ MORE>

Civic leaders, organizations, funders, and citizens increasingly recognize the power of technology to connect people, improve cities, and make government more effective.

A new report from Knight Foundation offers a first-of-its-kind analysis of the emerging civic tech landscape, including investments being made in this growing field and the organizations behind them. READ MORE>

Amid a global pandemic, the United States is grappling with deep polarization after a divisive presidential election and the events that followed. Moments of polarization, radicalization and extremism have increased public distrust in government, legislative gridlock, and violence in cities around the county. At this critical moment in history, Brookings President, John R. Allen and Darrell West look at how polarized discussions on race, ethnicity, religion, immigration and gender stem from years of income inequality, geographic disparities, systemic racism and the rise of digital technology, and propose policy solutions to chart Americans on a path towards national unity and reconciliation. READ MORE>

Ellen Friedman on the importance of increased public investment in elections. READ MORE>

Dan Cardinali on how nonprofits can continue building trust and participation in US elections by working with people on issues they care about. READ MORE>

A roundup of SSIR articles exploring ways to take on the unprecedented divides in America. READ MORE>

Sonal Shah and Hollie Russon Gilman on three co-governance models the new administration can use to genuinely empower people, create more-equitable policies, and rebuild trust in democratic institutions. READ MORE>