Community “collective settings” built on participatory governance, accountability, and openness to difference and experimentation build democratic capacity more effectively than top-down reform alone, three in-depth case studies find.
About this research
This November 2023 white paper from More in Common and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University examines “collective settings” — community spaces where people work together on shared problems — as an underused lever for democratic renewal. Drawing on 47 interviews and field observation across three in-depth case studies (the depolarization organization Braver Angels, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting reform process, and a forest-management partnership called Blue Mountain Forest Partners), it identifies four design features shared by settings that build trust and civic capacity: participatory governance, accountability, an embrace of difference, and room to experiment.
