Democracy Landscape
A reference directory of organisations active in the democracy, civic technology, and democratic reform space. Maintained by DOD members as a monitoring resource — to keep track of what different groups are doing and how the broader landscape is evolving.
These are not affiliated or partner organisations. Individuals from some of these groups participate in our discussions, but there is no formal association. Entries aim to be neutral and factual.
To add an organisation, open a pull request or raise it in the Telegram channel.
Active
Victoria's first registered co-operative co-working space, based in Melbourne CBD, providing affordable member-run workspace for social economy organisations alongside a podcast and events network focused on cooperative and mutual enterprise.
A non-partisan Australian group of citizens — academics, lawyers, politicians, journalists — working to improve standards of accountability, transparency, and democratic integrity in Australian governments.
A New Delhi-based non-partisan nonprofit working on electoral and political reform in India since 1999 — best known for the Supreme Court litigation that compelled mandatory candidate disclosure of criminal, financial, and educational backgrounds.
A pan-African survey research network headquartered in Accra conducting nationally representative surveys on democracy, governance, and quality of life in 35+ African countries — data freely available since 1999.
Palestine's national anti-corruption and governance integrity coalition — established 2000, accredited as Transparency International's Palestinian chapter in 2006, producing integrity indices, corruption reports, and electoral integrity monitoring.
A dedicated research and advocacy program within The Australia Institute focused on diagnosing and addressing Australia's democratic deficit — covering truth in political advertising, parliamentary reform, anti-corruption institutions, and campaign finance.
A coalition of 200+ Australian civil society organisations working for a fairer, more open, and more accountable democracy — focused on campaign finance reform, protecting civil society advocacy rights, protest rights, and countering disinformation.
A re-established Australian centrist political party with a strong focus on democratic reform, electoral integrity, and evidence-based policy — including explicit support for citizens' assemblies and proportional representation.
Malaysia's largest non-partisan coalition for electoral reform — a network of 90+ civil society organisations conducting independent election observation, voter registration drives, and public campaigns for free and fair elections since 2007.
An open-source Brazilian civic tech project that normalises 45+ scattered government databases into a single searchable graph — making public data genuinely accessible for accountability and civic research.
An Australian voter advice tool that helps citizens match their values to candidates before elections — launched before each state and federal election by Project Planet, a climate-focused charity.
An Adelaide-based incorporated association advocating for the use of citizens' assemblies in South Australian policy-making, with a cross-partisan advisory board including a former SA Premier, a former Liberal Senator, and the executive director of newDemocracy.
A Canberra-based community nonprofit promoting good governance and civic participation in the ACT through candidate accountability forums, deliberative conversations, and civic education — independently funded and member-run since 2015.
An Abuja-based independent research and advocacy organisation focused on democratic governance and human security in West Africa — founded in 1997 to support Nigeria's democratic transition, now a regional hub for policy analysis, electoral integrity, and civil society capacity-building.
A world-leading academic research centre at the University of Canberra focused on deliberative democracy — home of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy, and the institution behind the 2009 Australian Citizens' Parliament.
A Venezuelan Jesuit social research centre — independent, critically engaged with Bolivarian institutions, publishing on community council governance, political participation, and social policy since 1958. One of the few credible independent governance research bodies operating inside Venezuela.
The largest of China's eight officially recognised 'democratic parties' — ~357,000 members, primarily intellectuals in education, science, and culture. Operates within the CPC-led multi-party cooperation system under 'bounded articulation': advisory on sectoral matters, structurally incapable of challenging CPC authority.
An indigenous education and documentation centre in Chiapas, Mexico, aligned with the Zapatista autonomous communities — hosting the Zapatista 'Little Schools' and serving as a hub for research on the Juntas de Buen Gobierno governance model.
A UK campaign to replace the House of Lords with a randomly selected citizens' chamber — a permanent sortition-based upper house.
An Australian civic technology organisation that partners with government and non-profits to deliver digital solutions — through a fellowship program placing technologists inside public institutions.
The national support and capacity-building body for Australia's community independent candidate movement — a decentralised network of locally organised, non-partisan groups that support community-driven independent candidates for parliament.
Ecuador's main confederation of indigenous nationalities — 14 nationalities, 18 peoples — a governance actor as much as an advocacy body, having co-drafted Ecuador's 2008 plurinational constitution and operating parallel indigenous justice and territorial governance systems.
A Melbourne-based cooperative of cooperative developers, providing governance, business model, and development support to co-operatives, mutuals, social enterprises, and member-based organisations across Australia.
China's top political advisory body — a CPC-led consultative institution comprising ~3,000 delegates. Scholars characterise it as a 'flower vase' operating under 'bounded articulation': members can propose within preset CPC limits but cannot challenge the structure of authority. Included here as a documented example of managed consultation, and where it fails the good-faith accountability test.
Israel's largest civic movement (400,000+ supporters) defending rule of law, democratic participation, and fighting corruption — founded independent media outlet DemocraTV, and led mass protests against the 2023 judicial overhaul.
Australia's first national racial justice advocacy organisation led by people of colour, campaigning to address structural racism in Australian political, media, and civic institutions and to build the political power of communities of colour.
An international research institute focused on the theory and practice of sortition-based democracy — replacing elections with randomly selected assemblies as the primary decision-making mechanism.
An Adelaide-based deliberative democracy facilitation practice co-founded by Emily Jenke and Emma Fletcher, designing and delivering citizens' juries and deliberative panels for government and industry across Australia and internationally.
A pan-European political movement founded by Yanis Varoufakis in 2016, calling for radical democratisation of EU institutions through transparency, a transnational constitutional assembly, and coordinated progressive politics across member states.
A Johannesburg-based independent non-profit supporting credible elections and strong democratic institutions across Africa — conducting election observation, technical assistance, and governance programming in 16+ African countries since 1996.
An anti-corruption and pro-democracy organisation founded by Alexei Navalny — producing high-profile investigations of Kremlin-linked corruption, now operating in exile after being designated 'extremist' (2021) and 'terrorist' (November 2025) by Russian authorities. Led by Yulia Navalnaya following Navalny's death in prison in February 2024.
The Cuban chapter of the Latin American Social Sciences Faculty (FLACSO), based at the University of Havana — one of the few academic bodies in Cuba publishing empirical research on Cuba's Poder Popular governance system, electoral participation, and local government reform.
A Bolivian research foundation led by Pablo Solón — former government minister and UN ambassador under Morales — developing Vivir Bien (Buen Vivir) as a substantive governance theory, and studying how plurinational constitutional design functions in practice.
A Taiwanese civic tech community that forks government websites and services to make them more open, usable, and participatory — best known internationally for co-developing the vTaiwan deliberation platform.
A Belgian civic innovation initiative that pioneered large-scale citizens' assemblies, bringing together randomly selected citizens to deliberate on complex public issues.
An Austrian open democracy party founded by actor and political activist Roland Düringer, arguing that representative democracy as currently practised is broken and proposing citizen-led alternatives.
A Melbourne-based public policy think tank with a democracy and governance program — producing research on electoral integrity, parliamentary reform, campaign finance, and trust in government. Not democracy-specialist; covers a broad range of policy areas.
A US non-profit that designs and runs Citizens' Initiative Reviews — structured deliberative processes where randomly selected citizens evaluate ballot measures and publish findings for the wider electorate.
A Washington DC-based organisation advocating for the restoration of democratic governance in Hong Kong — specifically the election-based accountability system promised under One Country, Two Systems, which was effectively dismantled following the 2020 National Security Law.
A diaspora research institute focused specifically on constitutional frameworks and transition planning for democratic governance in China — studying separation of powers, institutional design, and comparative lessons from democratic transitions elsewhere.
A Delhi-based digital rights advocacy organisation defending civil liberties in Indian democracy — challenging internet shutdowns, surveillance, and data protection failures through litigation, policy engagement, and civic literacy since 2016.
A UK charity that develops and promotes public participation and deliberative democracy, advising governments on how to design and run genuine engagement processes.
Israel's leading nonpartisan democracy research institute — publishing annual Israeli Democracy Index, researching electoral reform, parliamentary oversight, judicial independence, civil service reform, and anti-corruption mechanisms since 1991.
A Bangalore-based organisation working on urban civic participation and local government reform in India — connecting citizens to municipal processes through ward-level engagement, civic technology, and the I Change My City platform since 2001.
The women's governance organisation of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria — maintaining parallel governance structures at every level of the AANES system, from commune to canton, as a structural check on all decision-making.
An Australian policy economics consultancy led by Nicholas Gruen — advising on economic reform, innovation, and democratic governance, with a particular interest in how institutions can better incorporate citizens' knowledge and deliberation.
An independent Beirut-based think tank founded in 1989 producing policy research and advocacy on governance, political representation, decentralisation, and electoral reform in Lebanon and the Arab region.
A Bratislava-based media monitoring and democratic civic engagement organisation with 25+ years of experience — monitoring media integrity during elections, researching disinformation, and supporting democratic consolidation in post-authoritarian contexts.
An Australian deliberative democracy practice that designs and facilitates public deliberation processes — citizens' juries, panels, and assemblies — for governments and public institutions.
Israel's main anti-corruption and rule-of-law watchdog — strategic litigation, Supreme Court petitions, and civic education since 1990. Has recovered billions in public funds and led legal challenges against the 2023 judicial overhaul.
The Philippines' independent citizen election watchdog — founded in 1983, widely regarded as the world's first citizen-led election monitoring organisation, with 250,000+ volunteers conducting parallel vote counts and election observation.
An independent, non-partisan Australian research and development organisation that designs and runs real-world deliberative democracy trials using randomly selected citizens.
An Australian civic technology institute combining direct, deliberative, and representative democracy — empowering people on specific issues and surfacing the informed 'will of the people' to elected governments.
An Australian civic technology charity building tools that help citizens understand and engage with their parliament and government.
Ukraine's leading non-partisan election observation organisation — monitoring elections since 2006, conducting parliamentary oversight, and co-founding the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE).
A global open-access database and research platform cataloguing thousands of participatory democracy cases, methods, and organisations from around the world.
An Australian political party focused on digital rights, civil liberties, and democratic reform, including initiating the Electoral Royal Commission campaign to investigate Australian voting reform.
An open-source consensus mapping platform used in large-scale public deliberations — participants rate statements rather than debating, and machine learning surfaces the points of genuine agreement across thousands of respondents.
An Austrian prediction market platform that aggregates collective intelligence on political and policy questions — users make structured predictions with reasons, and the system surfaces the informed consensus.
A New Delhi-based independent legislative research institute supporting parliamentarians and informing citizens — tracking bills, budgets, and MP activity for India's Parliament and state legislatures since 2005.
Australia's oldest electoral reform organisation, advocating for proportional representation via the Single Transferable Vote — the system already used in Tasmania, the ACT, and the Australian Senate.
Rwanda's government body for governance research and oversight — publishing annual governance scorecards, studying decentralisation and citizen participation, and administering the Ubudehe community classification system. Included for its governance design research, not as an independent watchdog of the Kagame government.
An Australian blockchain voting platform providing secure, scalable, and anonymous digital voting for governments, organisations, and token-based ecosystems.
The Australian chapter of the UK-based Sortition Foundation, running monthly community meetings and providing sortition recruitment services for Australian democratic processes — including Victorian council deliberations, federal electorate pilots, and national citizen assemblies.
A UK-based organisation advocating for the use of random selection (sortition) in democratic institutions, most prominently campaigning to replace the House of Lords with a randomly selected citizens' chamber.
A non-partisan Australian foundation working across all sides of politics to find common ground and practical pathways on major national challenges, with a focus on democratic and public sector reform.
The civilian governance coordination body of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES/Rojava) — an umbrella of communal councils, civil society organisations, and professional bodies implementing democratic confederalism in an active conflict zone.
Vietnam's constitutionally mandated consultative umbrella body — 50+ member organisations representing professional, religious, ethnic, and social groups — structurally analogous to China's CPPCC, operating under the Vietnamese Communist Party's single-party framework.
A Taiwanese open consultation platform that uses structured online deliberation — via Pol.is — to develop policy positions on contested issues, with outputs fed directly into the legislative process.
A UK political party founded in 2025, notable for using sortition (via the Sortition Foundation) to select delegates to its founding conference — producing a statistically representative membership sample balanced by gender, region, age, ethnicity, and other characteristics.
Inactive
An Australian organisation that ran participatory and deliberative democracy processes in communities — aimed at repairing and building democracy into everyday life. Wound up after six years of operation.
An open-source Australian app that lets citizens browse, read, and vote on bills before the Federal Parliament.
Russia's only independent nationwide election-monitoring organisation for 25 years — training observers, documenting electoral violations, and operating a public 'Map of Violations' platform. Dissolved in July 2025 after its co-chair was convicted under foreign agent legislation.
An Australian blockchain voting platform that aimed to bring secure, transparent digital voting to governments and organisations. Wound down after initial pilots.
Russia's best-known human rights and historical memory organisation — documenting Soviet-era repression and ongoing abuses for 35 years. Liquidated by Russian courts in December 2021 and designated 'extremist' in April 2026; continues operating through its international chapters, including Germany.
A US civic technology project focused on restoring political accountability through structured many-to-many communication between citizens and representatives.
Deregistered
An Australian political party that uses Issue-Based Direct Democracy (IBDD) to let constituents direct how elected representatives vote in parliament.
An Australian civic technology platform that provides citizens with balanced policy information and lets them register their preferences on issues before their representatives vote.