What if the democratic systems we’ve inherited are no longer fit for the world we live in? What if the rising tide of apathy, polarization, and political dysfunction isn’t just a crisis of leadership—but a crisis of design? Rethinking Democracy is a bold, timely, and necessary book that challenges the foundations of how we govern […]

Civil democracy is an improved type of democracy that uses the technology of the 21st century to tackle the challenges of democracy in the 21st century. Its core is the flexible storage of trust that allows every political actor to take responsibility and every voter to decide for every decision whether to express their democratic […]

We’re excited to share the newly released Civil Democracy Platform Handbook, a comprehensive guide to an innovative approach to democratic participation and representation fit for the 21st century. What’s in the Handbook? This 17-page document offers an in-depth explanation of: The platform’s goals: improving democratic efficacy, decision quality, and inclusivity at scale. How it works: […]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has often been described as “eternal”. But it is just a child of the 20th century and its partly realized and often failed promise to establish democratic efficacy and responsibility through the representation of homogenous groups. As such, it will be overcome in the 21st century through establishing democratic efficacy and responsibility […]

Civil Democracy – Key Publications at a Glance Over the past years, Civil Democracy has grown from an idea into a comprehensive model for renewing democracy’s ability to solve urgent problems. Along the way, we have published key contributions—academic, practical, and accessible—to build the case for this new approach. Here is your guide to core […]

Rebuilding Democracy: From Insight to Movement The Strategy to Restore Efficacy in a Fragmented World Democracy is in retreat. Across much of the world, citizens feel disempowered, misrepresented, and frustrated with how politics works—or doesn’t. A growing number no longer believe that voting every few years for distant politicians can shape their lives or solve […]

Recently, the possibility opened up to present the Civil democracy approach to Rebecca Shoot, Co-Convener at the Washington Working Group for the International Criminal Court (WICC) and former Executive Director at Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS). I was especially happy because Rebecca’s recent work with CGS was aimed at global governance, while her ongoing one […]

When writing Rethinking Democracy, I began with a simple but challenging premise: that the crisis of democracy we are living through is not just political, but intellectual. To respond, we need more than critique—we need creativity. This page presents a piece of the creative process that helped shape the book but ultimately didn’t make it […]

The world today seems caught in a spiral of overlapping crises—climate breakdown, institutional erosion, inequality, migration, war, and political polarization. Some call it a polycrisis, others a metacrisis. Some try to ignore them, but others are caught in trying to fight each of so many of them. But that’s the wrong approach. In my new […]

The polarization of democratic societies is often discussed in moral, cultural, or psychological terms—blaming angry voters, radical elites, or the rise of toxic media. But what if the deeper cause lies elsewhere, hidden in plain sight? In my recent open-access article in Sociology Compass, I argue that polarization is not inevitable. It results from a […]

In times of polycrisis—climate change, inequality, institutional mistrust—there is no shortage of calls for more democratic policymaking. But how can we actually involve whole populations in shaping policies that affect everyone, without overwhelming the system or the citizens? In my newly published article in Policy Design and Practice, titled “Large Scale Democratic Policy Design: Including […]

Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt is another well-meant bestselling account of America’s democracy crisis that will not solve it. Read my overview and review of the book: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two political scientists at Harvard University, analyze the erosion of democratic institutions in the United States in Tyranny […]

In October 2024 in Israel and Palestine, peace seems to be further away than ever. In fact, however, it might be closer than ever. The war has shaken off entrenched views. Current emotions will abate, but new perspectives will remain. We can build on them. Apparently, things are becoming worse and worse. But below the […]

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