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The pressing crisis in democracy is not new.

We are facing a historical moment of crisis and reinvention in American democracy. Join the Realizing Democracy mailing list to continue the conversation.

The Pressing Crisis in Democracy is Not New

We are facing a historical moment of crisis and reinvention in American democracy. Read 11 perspectives on what would it take to realize the full promise of democracy in the United States.

WATCH | Introducing Realizing Democracy | by Eyes Up Here Productions

Democracy means people power. It means making decisions with all people at the table. The center of democracy is human dignity.

A Path Forward

The democracy that emerges now must be one that redresses the immediate pressures of the current moment, but also one that addresses deeper chronic forms of systemic exclusion.

Civil Society

Does social change work build durable grassroots power and voice that outlasts any one election or campaign?

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Woman standing with microphone

A Path Forward

Does our approach to policymaking reinforce the disempowerment of the public and the inequalities of our socioeconomic order?

Government

Long-term, structural renewal to our democracy requires looking to how institutions must be remade in radically inclusive, participatory, and power-shifting ways.

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Young people holding no gun signs

A Path Forward

To reclaim democracy, we have to contend with questions about power.

Economy

A democracy marked by deep inequities of wealth and economic power—operating simultaneously along class and racial and gender lines—is one in which political democracy is fundamentally limited and unstable.

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Crowd of people with signs

We released an 11-article sponsored supplement to the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Winter 2020 volume. The supplement was developed with our partners at Community Change, the Center on Democracy and Organizing, Demos, and the Open Society Foundations as part of the year-long Realizing Democracy series. 

Read the Series Here

Amplifier's Realizing Democracy Art Series

Download. Share. Inspire. Act.
Two people with man raising his fist.

Nicolas Lampert

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Gregg Deal, Real Power Real People Hand Drawn

Gregg Deal

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Hand holding lightbulb with statue of liberty inside

Thomas Wimberly

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Celeste Byers, We are American

Celeste Byers

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Rommy Torrico, Democracy is a Practice

Rommy Torrico

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Never Made, Redistribution

Never Made

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Tracie Ching, Democracy is Solidarity

Tracie Ching

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We have to always be hopeful and optimistic. We have to fight smarter with an urgency and a strategic imagination that matches the scale of the problem. –Dorian T. Warren