Open Access Resource
Open Book: Open-Source Budget Transparency for Municipalities
With a majority of municipalities publishing their budgets as PDFs, Open Book offers a free alternative that towns own and run themselves.
Video
Can Higher Education Help Renovate American Democracy?
The Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation hosted a webinar with several panelists to discuss a host of new campus initiatives that offer promising pathways for higher education to reassert its vital role in strengthening democracy by engaging students’ civic learning and supporting their development as civic actors.
Related Resources
Commentary
The Hidden Cost of Cord Cutting: Losing Access to Civic Life
As cord-cutting erodes the funding that sustains local cable access channels, this piece from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation offers recommendations for preserving vital sources of community information, government transparency, and civic participation.
Commentary
Allen Lab Fellow Spotlight: City Charters Are Deliberative Democracy’s Friends
Allen Lab Fellow Tyler Fisher examines the untapped potential of city charters as a vehicle for deliberative democracy, arguing that advocates should work to embed tools like citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, and town meetings directly into the governing architecture of cities, institutionalizing deliberative democracy one municipality at a time.
Commentary
Allen Lab Fellow Spotlight: City Charters Are Deliberative Democracy’s Friends
Allen Lab Fellow Tyler Fisher examines the untapped potential of city charters as a vehicle for deliberative democracy, arguing that advocates should work to embed tools like citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, and town meetings directly into the governing architecture of cities, institutionalizing deliberative democracy one municipality at a time.
Article
Reframing Efficiency: How Public Deliberation Strengthens Public Health Policy
In a recent American Journal of Public Health essay, Ash Center Director Archon Fung, Democracy Visiting Fellow Aditya S. Pawar, former Non-resident Fellow Jon Alexander, and their co-authors examine how public deliberation and civic engagement can produce more efficient and reliable public health policy.
Feature
Terms of Engagement Summer Reading List
Books, reports, and articles exploring the front lines of American politics and democracy, as featured on the Terms of Engagement podcast.