Democracy Innovation Lab

The Democracy Innovation Lab is dedicated to exploring the complex relationship between technology, disinformation, and the health of democratic institutions. As digital platforms and new technologies become increasingly embedded in our daily lives, they also present new vulnerabilities and challenges for maintaining free, fair, and secure democratic processes. Through interdisciplinary research and collaboration, the Democracy Innovation Lab investigates how digital and emerging technologies can both be exploited to undermine democratic norms and institutions, as well as be leveraged to strengthen democratic resilience around the globe.

KEY AREAS OF FOCUS

  • FOREIGN INTERFERENCE

    Analyzing how state and non-state actors use digital and emerging technologies to interference in the domestic affairs and electoral processes of other countries. 

  • DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING

    Exploring how the rapid evolution of new technologies intersects with the erosion of democratic checks and balances, civil liberties, and the rule of law in established, emerging, and fragile democracies

  • DIGITAL CIVIC EMPOWERMENT

    Identifying ways in which new and digital technologies can be leveraged to enhance political participation, government transparency and the ability for citizens to meaningfully engage in democratic processes.  

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Featured
Strategic Authoritarian Narratives in the Sahel
Strategic Authoritarian Narratives in the Sahel

In recent years, countries in the Sahel region of Africa have faced widespread insecurity and instability. Stretching across the northern tier of sub-Saharan Africa, Sahel countries Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have all experienced a series of military coups and rising levels of right-wing extremism. Poverty, environmental degradation, and competition for scarce resources like uranium, have further exacerbated this situation, creating a volatile mix of factors that have fueled social unrest and enabled the expansion of terrorist groups operating in these countries. 

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Technical infrastructure as a hidden terrain of disinformation
Technical infrastructure as a hidden terrain of disinformation

While social media disinformation has received significant academic and policy attention, more consequential forms of intentional manipulation target the underlying digital infrastructures upon which society depends. Infrastructure-based deception, less visible than deception targeting content and platforms, has consequences for internet security, stability and trust. This article examines terrains of disinformation in digital infrastructure, including in the Domain Name System, access and interconnection, public key infrastructures, cyber-physical systems and emerging technologies. Infrastructure disinformation is largely a cybersecurity problem. By bringing technical infrastructure into the epistemic realm of disinformation, this paper shifts policy conversations around content moderation to encompass stronger cybersecurity architectures.

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Disinformation and Identity-Based Violence
Disinformation and Identity-Based Violence

Disinformation spread via digital technologies is accelerating and exacerbating violence globally. There is an urgency to understand how coordinated disinformation campaigns rely on identity-based disinformation that weaponizes racism, sexism, and xenophobia to incite violence against individuals and marginalized communities, stifle social movements, and silence the press.

The purposeful spread and amplification of identity-based disinformation is not just an individual expression of individual bias but instead represents the systematic weaponization of discrimination to make hateful narratives go viral. At the core of identity-based disinformation is the exploitation of individuals’ or groups’ senses of identity, belonging, and social standing.

Responding to identity-based disinformation will require technical and human responses that are collaborative, locally relevant, and community-driven. Given the extent of the harms posed by identity-based disinformation, there is a continued need to develop, implement, and improve responses.

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