Our Programs
DODO is committed to strengthening our democracy.
We do so by drawing on experiences and knowledge from around the world.
To that end, we have established three programs that will lay the groundwork for our ongoing democracy programming:
The International Democracy Internship Program (IDIP)
The Democracy Advisors Program (DAP)
The Democracy Diagnostics Program (DDP)
The International Democracy Internship Program (IDIP)
As part of the International Democracy Internship Program (IDIP), DODO partners with international universities to offer local, Washington D.C.-based support, advice, and educational programs for students interning or engaging in short-term work experience in the greater Washington, D.C., area. IDIP emphasizes the value of international and inter-cultural exchange and learning -- and encourages participating students to explore, understand, and write-about their comparative perspectives on U.S. institutions and government. Students will regularly publish their insights on the DODO Blog.
DODO currently partners with the Jeff Bleich Centre for Democracy and Disruptive Technologies (JBC) at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, on its Washington Internship Program (WIP). Since its founding year in 2000, WIP has sent 138 students to work in the US Congress and DC-based think tanks, media outlets, and nonprofits. Working closely with The Fund for American Studies (TFAS), DODO provides local support, advice, educational tours, and extra curricular activities to Australian undergraduate students to complement their internships on Capitol Hill.
The Democracy Advisors Program (DAP)
The DAP is a DODO initiative that creates and maintains the DODO Academic Advisory Council (DAAC). The DAAC is a diverse network of scholars from political science, public policy, history, sociology, and allied fields who provide DODO with high-level and strategic guidance on:
The scholarly treatment of electoral reforms and democratic institutions, including new developments in the literature.
The proposals and institutions that DODO should focus on in the coming quarters.
In addition to providing guidance, DAAC members may volunteer to:
Review DODO articles, guides, or digests about particular proposals and institutions.
Contribute to op-eds, blogs, and other public-facing media on behalf of DODO.
Serve as a pool of trusted experts that DODO makes available to journalists for comment on reform issues.
Participate in or help organize DODO events, including informing and advising reform advocates and legislators.
Assist with requests for technical assistance.
Mentor other DAAC members and foster a community among DAAC members and scholars of democratic institutions more broadly.
The DAP will support the academic community and DAAC by:
Recruiting members and forging a sense of community among democracy-oriented researchers.
Organizing events, conferences, and other meetings.
Developing and distributing a newsletter or other publication highlighting the latest research and developments in the many disciplines studying democratic institutions.
Encouraging scholars at all stages of their careers to share their work with others in and out of academia.
Ensuring that the DAAC has at least 10 members and meets no less than once a quarter.
Providing a DODO representative to each meeting to help organize the meeting, take and distribute meeting minutes, answer questions about DODO operations and plans, and solicit and report feedback from DAAC members to DODO.
In the longer term, the DAP will fund grants for research on under-studied reform areas and publicize the findings of that research. These grants will be awarded as part of a competitive process and will be open to applicants outside the DAAC.
The Democracy Diagnostics Program (DDP)
The DDP is a DODO initiative that is primarily concerned with ongoing research and communications for the DODO website. The chief purposes of the program include:
Creating and monitoring content on the website, especially the ‘Diagnose our Democracy’ and ‘Reform Facts’ sections.
Generating templates and working with scholars on the Institutional 101s that will be published on the website.
Managing any incoming research or fact-checking queries from the public.
The DDP will work closely with the Democracy Advisors Program (DAP) to recruit scholars to review content for the Institutional 101s and to review work of the DDP in the ‘Reform Facts’ and ‘Diagnose our Democracy’ sections of the DODO website.