Year in Review, 2022

Democracy is no longer a matter of consensus, so broadly accepted that we don’t worry much about it. The days when challenges to democracy could be addressed with a blue-ribbon commission, such as the one chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker after the 2000 election, are long gone. But deeper voter engagement on the health of democracy itself also means that there’s room for more ambitious solutions than were possible before, including the deep structural reforms that begin with some of the ballot initiatives that passed this year and would include reforms such as proportional representation, electoral fusion, and multiparty democracy that New America’s Political Reform program has prioritized.

But as with any contested issue, winning the fight for democracy also requires people to have a positive and engaging experience of democracy in their daily lives and in their communities. That’s why our work on collaborative governance—a model of civic engagement that can be less adversarial but also conscious of power—is essential to winning the contest for democracy. It’s also why we work on these two aspects of democratic practice in combination, while structural reforms and civic engagement are often treated as separate realms.

Our 2022 year in review report summarizes the work we’ve done in each of these areas, as well as our current thinking on all things political reform.