Democracy Garage.
DAL puts research into practice through the Democracy Garage — a collaborative space for researchers, citizens and policy practitioners to prototype solutions to democratic backsliding.
About
The Democracy Garage is a problem-solving hub that generates insights to strengthen the effectiveness of pro-democracy movements. By bridging the gap between democratic theory and practice, it serves as both an innovation incubator and an accelerator for democracy entrepreneurs. In this space, practitioners and experts collaborate to co-design impactful responses to the challenges of autocracy and democratic erosion.
Why the Democracy “Garage”?
The work of the Democracy Garage draws inspiration from the history of innovation, both at Stanford and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. We live in the shadow of legendary garages. From the HP garage in Palo Alto, often called the birthplace of Silicon Valley, to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak tinkering in a suburban garage before launching Apple, the garage has become a powerful symbol of creativity and revolutionary innovation.
A garage is functional. It is a place to build prototypes, test concepts, fail rapidly, and then quickly iterate solutions that lead to improved outcomes. In Silicon Valley, a garage is a space where bold ideas are born, refined, and the world is reimagined. That experimental, collaborative, solutions-oriented mindset is what the Democracy Garage brings to the fight for democracy and improved human development.
Like the Silicon Valley garages of the past, the Democracy Garage is a workshop for the future, where ideas become tools, and tools become strategies in the battle for democracy.
The problem
Around the world, authoritarian entrepreneurs are drawing on a shared implicit playbook to dismantle democracy from within. These patterns suggest that autocratic tools are transferable across contexts. Effective countermeasures can be, too.
Our role
The Democracy Action Lab exists to decode the shared patterns of democratic backsliding. The Democracy Garage then translates those insights into stage-specific tools to equip front-line advocates and defenders of democracy with better and more effective strategies.
The autocrat’s playbook
In the 21st century, democratic systems are not brought down by military coups or guerrilla groups, as they were in the past. It is more common for autocrats to come to power through the ballot box. Once in power, they follow a strikingly similar blueprint to dismantle democracy from within.
- Capturing the executive branch.
- Demonizing and delegitimizing political adversaries.
- Undermining the independence of courts and prosecutors.
- Subverting other horizontal accountability bodies and agencies — legislatures, anticorruption agencies, ombudsmen.
- Cultivating loyal constituencies that can be activated for pro-regime mobilization.
- Controlling the information ecosystem: attacking media independence, politicizing public communication, restricting internet freedom.
- Consolidating a propaganda machine that divides the population into “patriots” and “traitors”.
- Undermining independent voices in civil society — universities, electoral commissions, NGOs.
- Intimidating the business community through inspections, tax increases, or “the law” as an instrument of control.
- Enriching a class of loyal and clientelist capitalists.
- Extending political control over non-partisan state bureaucracies and securing the loyalty of the security apparatus.
- Manipulating electoral rules — districts, voter registration.
Map backsliding pathways
We identify the typical trajectories of democratic backsliding and the common challenges and dilemmas that movements face at each stage.
Provide a repository of insights
We build an evidence-based repository that can be assembled in different ways and tailored to each country, with scientific insights on the strategic dilemmas of pro-democracy movements and a collection of interventions that worked.
Put research into practice and practice into research
We translate cutting-edge social science into policy practice, help practitioners build action plans, and learn back from them what succeeds, what fails, and why.
Build lasting capabilities
We act as a knowledge hub so practitioners acquire the skills to rebuild quality democratic governance — and that feedback loop expands the Lab's own repository.
Work with the Garage.
Tell us what you are up against and what you are trying to build.