Democracy

Framing ethical perspectives

Democracy is a form of government in which political control is given to the people, whether directly or through the election of governing officials. Currently, large numbers of people have lost faith in this form of government and some elected officials have been working to dismantle democratic institutions. Our programs, events, and experts strive to better understand this development.

Featured Democracy Resources

State of global democracy, U.S. global engagement, and more

JUN 9, 2021 Podcast

Illiberal Democracy on the Rise: Examining Brazil, Hungary, & India

APR 19, 2022 Podcast

Why Democracy vs. Autocracy Misses the Point, with Jean-Marie Guéhenno

Senior Fellow Anja Kapsersen is joined by Professor Jean-Marie Guéhenno for a conversation about virtual communities and the advent of the age of data.

FEB 23, 2024 Article

What Do We Mean When We Talk About "AI Democratization"?

With numerous parties calling for "AI democratization," Elizabeth Seger, director of the CASM digital policy research hub at Demos, discusses four meanings of the term.

Explore Our Democracy Resources

MAY 1, 2019 Podcast

Global Ethics Weekly: Citizenship, Social Media, & the Indian Election, with Kavitha Rajagopalan

Senior Fellow Kavitha Rajagopalan discusses the ongoing Indian election through the complicated lens of citizenship and explains the vast power of political organizing and social ...

APR 23, 2019 Podcast

How Change Happens, with Cass Sunstein

From the French Revolution to the Arab Spring to #MeToo, how does social change happen? In a book that was 25 years in the making, Cass ...

APR 22, 2019 Podcast

Human Rights, Liberalism, & Ordinary Virtues, with Michael Ignatieff

Central European University's President Michael Ignatieff is a human rights scholar, an educator, a former politician, and, as he tells us, the son of a ...

China's President Xi Jinping and Taiwan's then-President Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore, 2015. CREDIT: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/presidentialoffice/22843285625">Taiwan Presidential Office</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(CC)</a>

APR 4, 2019 Podcast

China's Influence on Democracies in Asia, with Joshua Kurlantzick

As part of Carnegie Council's Information Warfare podcast series, Devin Stewart interviews Joshua Kurlantzick about his recent project on Chinese media and influence campaigns and ...

Statue of Liberty. CREDIT: <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/Ronile-126846/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=267948">Ronile</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=267948">Pixabay</a>

APR 1, 2019 Article

Democratic Decline?

We are familiar with one type of democratic decline: the loss of faith by voters in institutions and politicians, the breakdown in trust in expertise ...

MAR 28, 2019 Podcast

Global Ethics Weekly: Liberal Democracy, Empathy, & AI, with Alexander Görlach

In this wide-ranging talk, Carnegie Council Senior Fellow Alexander Görlach discusses the importance of empathy in liberal democracies, the shocking Uyghur detention in China, ...

MAR 26, 2019 Podcast

The Crack-Up: Egypt & the Wilsonian Moment, with Erez Manela

For about 18 months after World War I there was what historian Erez Manela calls the "Wilsonian moment"--a brief period when President Woodrow Wilson led ...

L to R: Helen Rosenthal, Nily Rozic, Yvette D. Clarke, Erin Vilardi. CREDIT: Amanda Ghanooni.

MAR 25, 2019 Podcast

Political Leadership: Beyond Gender

To celebrate the record number of women elected into Congress, the 63rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN, and ...

MAR 22, 2019 Article

America in Decline?

A Pew Research report says that many Americans view the country as being in long-term decline. What implications does this have for U.S. foreign ...

MAR 20, 2019 Podcast

Computational Propaganda, with Nick Monaco

In this in-depth conversation, Oxford Internet Institute researcher Nick Monaco reviews the history of computational propaganda (online disinformation), which goes back almost two decades and ...