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Democracy made Athens a dynamic, creative force 2500 years ago. Even then, however, Democracy was fragile, sometimes stupid, and short-lived. Plato held it in low esteem and Aristotle likened it to "mob rule." Why, then, do we want to create 21st Century Agoras. What we want to create are communities energized by vibrant participative Democracy. In our Information Age as old hierarchies prove dysfunctional, it is imperative that human communities have flexible ways to tap their wisdom and power. We do not believe that unstructured discussion on the Athenian model is adequate for dealing with the complexities of the Information Age. It was not adequate even for the simpler (by an order of magnitude as determined by a metric called Situational Complexity Index) situations of that bygone age. The Information Age challenges us to make participative Democracy a liberating force in the world today. Research and proven methodology, aided by networked computing, has resolved at least one basic dilemma of Democracy:   How can we hear perspectives of all the stakeholders, make collective sense of them, and reach decisions and act on pressing issues? The approach that overcomes this dilemma and multiple other hindrances to dialogic Democracy is called the Structured Dialogic Design (SDD). The Agoras Institute convenes these dialogues as Co-Laboratories of Democracy. This process is a fusion of the theory of Generic Design Science and the consultative practice of Interactive Management, both developed over the last 30 years by Dr. John Warfield and our founder, Aleco Christakis.

In Slow Democracy, community leader Susan Clark and Democracy scholar Woden Teachout describe how citizens around the country are breathing new life into their communities. Large institutions, centralized governments, and top-down thinking are no longer society's drivers. New decision-making techniques are ensuring that local communities-and the citizens who live there-are uniquely suited to meet today's challenges. In Slow Democracy, readers learn the stories of residents who gain community control of water systems and local forests, parents who find creative solutions to divisive and seemingly irreconcilable school-redistricting issues, and a host of other citizen-led actions that are reinvigorating local Democracy and decision making.

deliberative-democracy.net is the online home of the Deliberative democracy Consortium. The mission of the Consortium is to bring together practitioners and researchers to support and foster the nascent, broad-based movement to promote and institutionalize deliberative democracy at all levels of governance in the United States and around the world.

E-Democracy.org builds online public space in the heart of real Democracy and community. Our mission is to harness the power of online tools to support participation in public life, strengthen communities, and build Democracy. Starting with the world's first election information website in 1994 in Minnesota, today we host over 50 local Issues Forums in 17 communities across three countries - New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to these "online town halls" and our "community life" forums we promote civic engagement online around the world.

Democracy Beyond Elections is a collaborative, national campaign dedicated to transformative Democracy rooted in community led decision making.  It is not enough to get the right person elected or to know that those closest to the issues are closest to the solutions - we must act on this knowledge and put real decision making power in community hands. This means equipping community-members often ignored, pushed out, or marginalized by our current democratic systems with the tools, resources, and opportunities to deeply engage in democratic processes. This means committing to radically reimagine what participation and civic engagement really entail - including tangible and consequential power sharing. And this means expanding our definition of Democracy to extend between and beyond elections in participatory practices that include everyone.

Direct democracy in California was born in the hopes of bringing the people into the governance process, but it has led to a kind of audience democracy. Voters have become consumers of television sound-bite campaigns and new-media messaging, not authors of the laws they give to themselves.

The Democracy Collaborative was established in 2000 to advance a new understanding of Democracy for the 21st century and to promote new strategies and innovations in community development that enhance democratic life. Our goal is to change the prevailing paradigm of community economic development-and of the economy as a whole-in the United States toward a new emphasis and system based on: Broadening ownership and stewardship over capital Democracy at the workplace Stabilizing community and emphasizing locality Equitable and inclusive growth Environmental, social, and institutional sustainability The Collaborative is a national leader in the field of community development through our Community Wealth Building Initiative. The Initiative sustains a wide range of projects involving research, training, policy development, and community-focused work designed to promote an asset-based paradigm and increase support for the field across-the-board.

"We'll take the White House. We'll take the Senate. Then, we'll enact a bold, day-one democracy agenda to ensure our country works for everyone, not just a powerful few. The only way we get there is if 2020 presidential candidates do three things:  1. Propose a bold democracy agenda; 2. Make democracy their top legislative priority; 3. Get real about how we get it done: ending the filibuster."

"When it comes to political co-determination by citizens, Switzerland is the undisputed world champion. More than one third of all referendums ever held at national level worldwide have taken place in Switzerland. The historical origins of direct democracy in Switzerland are just as interesting as the continuing topical nature of citizens' rights themselves. We provide below an overview. "

Rekindling Democracy, A Professional's Guide To Working In Citizen Space, convincingly argues that industrialized countries are suffering through a democratic inversion; where the doctor is assumed to be the primary producer of health; the teacher of education; the police officer of safety, and the politician of Democracy. Through just the right blend of storytelling, research and original ideas Russell asserts instead that in a functioning Democracy, the role of the professionals ought to be defined as that which happens after the important work of citizens is done.

Code for America hosted Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu for a discussion of their recent book, "Gardens of the Democracy." In it, they challenge Americans to approach the world not as a machinery that needs to be perfected but as a garden that needs constant attention, discretion, and periodic weeding. The book argues that since society and technology have fundamentally changed, so must our notions of citizenship and Democracy: turning "the machine" into a garden. 

Our ultimate vision is that local communities create and sustain public dialogue and problem solving. Such strong local democracies can form the cornerstone of a vibrant national democracy

Google version of the digital revolution. Far from being a bad thing, he argues that the potential for creativity, the ability to connect and communicate and the ability to have ones voice heard is driving fundamental societal change. So, is the digital revolution leading us to a more democratic, more environmentally and socially conscious future? And better business models?

MISSION Healthy Democracy is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating the public's voice in our Democracy. We work to advance innovative and powerful ways for the public to engage in the democratic process and improve our political discourse.

Heartland Democracy engages directly with Midwestern youth, independent thinkers, centrists, and folks who are uninvolved in their community and politics.  Using shared values and critical issues as the bases and sparks for discussion, Heartland Democracy targets specific participants, institutions, demographic segments, and geographic areas for exchanges in which we weave together a coherent set of values, stories, history, facts, and ideas to reach the emotional factors so decisive in the shaping of mindsets. 

The Deliberative Democracy Consortium is an alliance of the major organizations and leading scholars working in the field of deliberation and public engagement. The DDC represents more than 50 foundations, nonprofit organizations, and universities, collaborating to support research activities and advance democratic practice, in North America and around the world.

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy was a blue ribbon panel of seventeen media, policy and community leaders. Its purpose was to assess the information needs of communities, and recommend measures to help Americans better meet those needs. Its Report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age, was the first major commission on media since the Hutchins Commission in the 1940's and the Kerner and Carnegie Commissions of the 1960's.

We are a newly formed Social Enterprise established to improve the way that service providers stimulate and support the development of the Big Society concept. By Big Society we mean everything from building the capacity of volunteers to supporting organisations to work better together with the community. We have a strong history in participatory democracy and have developed out of a commitment to 'practice what we preach'. Our raisen d'etre is to empower organisations and communities to reconnect within the social space that lies between the state and the individual. Ultimately, we aim to promote participatory democracy and increase social capital, for the mutual benefit of all.

ABOUT THE KETTERING FOUNDATION The Kettering Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan research organization rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Everything Kettering researches relates to one central question: what does it take for democracy to work as it should? Or put another way: What does it take for citizens to shape their collective future?

The foundation explores ways that key political practices can be strengthened through innovations that emphasize active roles for citizens. Kettering's research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people collectively can do to address problems affecting their lives, their community, and their nation.

Animating Democracy places high value on learning from and building capacity and visibility for practitioners' work on the ground. At the same time Animating Democracy brings to bear Americans for the Arts' strengths in research, policy, professional development, visibility, and advocacy specifically to advance and elevate arts for change work on field, cross-sector, and national levels. Animating Democracy routinely connects and collaborates with other organizations and field leaders working at the heart of arts for change in order to draw on expertise and different perspectives in the planning and implementation of our programs and services.