Stanford Democracy Hub
What are, and what should we be doing at Stanford to understand, reimagine and strengthen democracy? These are the questions that animate the Stanford Democracy Hub.
The Stanford Democracy Hub serves to elevate and amplify our collective efforts that strengthen democracy.
Democratic values and practices are under threat throughout the United States and globally, and within our own campus community.
Scholars, students and leaders from all corners of Stanford are working on the vital project of strengthening democracy. The Democracy Hub seeks to make more visible, accessible, coordinated and, ultimately, more impactful that shared project of reimagining our civic purpose and delivering on the promise of democracy: creating the societies we want to live in together.
Explore our website to identify upcoming civic and democracy-related events, opportunities to engage, leading research, courses and the hundreds of people at Stanford dedicated to these efforts.
Featured Activities
Hey Stanford: Register to Vote!
StanfordVotes is a non-partisan, university-wide, student-run organization to increase voter turnout. After low student turnout in 2014 and 2016, StanfordVotes has worked to engage students, campus leadership and the broader community to create a culture of civic engagement on the Farm. In 2022, more Stanford students registered to vote than students at any other CA campus. Let's keep it going!
Program on Capitalism and Democracy
The Program on Capitalism and Democracy seeks to address the crisis in democratic capitalism, marked by public disaffection with the system and perceived market and political failures. The program explores the interaction between the forces of capitalism, various forms of inequality and injustice, and the erosion of democratic institutions, seeking ways to promote the proper balance of power, truth, and accountability.
The Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Parternship
The Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Program Fellowship (ICDP) is a year-long hybrid experience, beginning in the summer, that develops students' abilities to engage in and lead conversations about difficult, important topics across political difference at their respective universities and beyond. These skills are important for developing students' capacity for leadership, civic engagement, and personal development.
Rule of Law Impact Lab
Recent years have witnessed a stark rise in authoritarianism around the world, eroding decades’ worth of post-Cold War democratic advances. In the absence of effective countervailing forces, the associated evisceration of the rule of law will only deepen and spread over time. The Stanford Law School Rule of Law Impact Lab studies and deploys legal tools–litigation and legal research, documentation, and advocacy–in close collaboration with local practitioners and academics to combat democratic decline around the world, including in the U.S.
State and Local Governance Initiative
The State and Local Governance Initiative at the Hoover Institution generates high-quality publishable research with the goal of impacting state and local government policy. Our team specializes in partnering with policymakers at the state and local level to provide evidence-based analysis and policy recommendations using administrative government data.
New: Gordion Knot Center for National Security Innovation
The Stanford Gordian Knot Center (GKC) for National Security Innovation trains and connects the next generation of national security innovators with the U.S. Government to solve the world's most intractable challenges. We solve national security problems and deliver projects at the intersection of diplomacy, information, military, the economy and commercial technologies.