Democracy is in peril. It’s time for the second act.

Democratic fitness complements civic literacy. If civic literacy is about knowing how democracy works, democratic fitness is about developing the habits and confidence to act within it. It describes a person’s sense of agency, voice, and moral courage — qualities that only grow through practice. Participating in meetings, resolving conflicts, or taking responsibility for shared decisions are the democratic equivalents of training and exercise. Democracies thrive when citizens have regular opportunities to test and strengthen these capacities, learning not only how to speak, but how to listen and act together with purpose.

Civic designer and social entrepreneur, Sarah Schulman co-founded InWithForward, a pioneering lab that redesigns social services from the ground up. Her work begins where policy meets daily life — in shelters, classrooms, and care homes — asking how systems might better support human connection and growth. Blending anthropology, design, and moral imagination, Schulman helps frontline workers and citizens co-create new ways of living and governing together. She shows that democracy’s renewal depends on the same process as good design: start with people’s lived experience, test what works, and keep iterating toward dignity and belonging.

In the decades after the Second World War, governments saw citizens as resources — partners in rebuilding societies and expanding shared prosperity. Over time, this outlook shifted. With the rise of New Public Management in the 1980s and 1990s, citizens increasingly came to be viewed through the lens of risk: as potential liabilities, clients, or problems to be managed. The risk–resource dyad describes this inversion and its effects on public life. When institutions treat people primarily as risks, trust erodes and initiative declines. Reclaiming the resource view — of citizens as capable contributors — is central to renewing democratic life.

Political economist and Nobel laureate, Elinor Ostrom upended the idea that only markets or governments could manage shared resources. Studying fisheries, forests, and irrigation systems around the world, she found that ordinary people often succeeded where experts predicted failure. Communities, she showed, could craft durable rules through trust, reciprocity, and local knowledge. Ostrom’s work proved that cooperation isn’t naïve — it’s practical. Her legacy is a new understanding of the commons: not as something doomed to collapse, but as a living demonstration of how people can govern themselves wisely and well.

Democratic Action Funds propose that a small share — about five percent — of the cost of running elections be set aside to support democracy between elections. These funds would back citizen-led projects that strengthen public problem-solving: local assemblies, participatory budgeting, or new civic initiatives. Managed transparently at local, regional, or national levels, they would give people the means to work together on shared concerns rather than waiting for governments to act alone. The idea links voting to ongoing participation, recognizing that healthy democracies invest not only in elections, but in what happens after them.

Philosopher, pragmatist, and public optimist, John Dewey believed democracy was more than a system of government — it was a way of life. In the 1920s, he sparred with journalist Walter Lippmann over whether ordinary citizens could truly govern themselves. Lippmann doubted it; Dewey insisted they could — if given the chance to learn, deliberate, and act together. He saw democracy as an experiment in shared intelligence, renewed each time people collaborate to solve common problems. His vision of a society constantly learning from itself remains one of democracy’s most radical and hopeful ideas.

Modern democracies ask citizens to choose who will govern but rarely ask them to take part. Voting has become our only regular civic act, leaving most people distant from the work of government. Service ballots are meant to close that gap. Issued alongside the regular electoral ballot, they invite citizens to volunteer for democratic service — joining assemblies, advisory panels, or local planning efforts. By linking elections to participation, service ballots treat self-government not as a spectator sport but as shared work, renewing the connection between choosing leaders and shaping public life.

The waterschappen — or Dutch water boards — are among the oldest democratic institutions in the world. Dating back to the Middle Ages, they were created to manage dikes, canals, and floods in a country that literally depends on cooperation to survive. Landowners and residents elected representatives to oversee water levels, maintain infrastructure, and collect local taxes. The model endures today, a quiet reminder that self-government began not with parliaments but with people managing shared risks. The waterschappen show how democracy can grow from practical necessity — from the need to live together safely on common ground.

Citizens’ assemblies bring together randomly selected people to learn, deliberate, and make recommendations on complex public issues. The first modern assembly was held in British Columbia in 2004 to consider electoral reform. Since then, more than a thousand have been organized around the world — on topics from climate change to constitutional questions — in countries including Ireland, France, and Japan. The OECD now recognizes them as a new democratic standard. Each assembly demonstrates that ordinary citizens, given time, information, and support, can reason together as equals and produce thoughtful, legitimate guidance for governments.

A political theorist with a sharp eye for language and power, Hanna Pitkin redefined what it means to be represented. In her landmark 1967 book The Concept of Representation, she asked a deceptively simple question: when politicians “represent” us, what do they actually do? Pitkin argued that true representation isn’t a transaction — it’s a relationship built on responsiveness and trust. Her insights exposed the distance between voters and those who claim to speak for them, and continue to shape how we think about voice, accountability, and agency in modern democracy.

Civic lotteries are a way to recruit citizens for public discussion and decision-making through random selection. Like jury duty, invitations are mailed to a broad cross-section of the population. From those who respond, participants are chosen to reflect the community’s diversity — balancing age, gender, geography, income, and background. The result is a group that mirrors society rather than the usual voices who volunteer or are invited. By widening who gets to take part, civic lotteries make democratic life more inclusive and grounded in everyday experience.

A Swedish physician and data visionary, Hans Rosling devoted his life to helping people see the world as it really is — not as fear or headlines make it seem. Through his dazzling bubble charts and gentle humour, he revealed a planet growing healthier, wealthier, and better educated than most imagined. Rosling believed progress depended on curiosity and shared understanding — on replacing instinctive pessimism with informed confidence. His work championed a deeper civic virtue: to know the world before judging it.

Brazilian philosopher, legal theorist, and reformer, Roberto Unger has spent his career insisting that our institutions are never inevitable — they are made, and can be remade. He rejects the idea that capitalism or liberal democracy mark the end of political imagination. Instead, he urges us to treat society itself as a work in progress, open to redesign. Unger’s writing can be demanding but always points to the same conviction: that democracy is strongest when people see themselves not as subjects of history, but as its authors.

Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a trailblazing organization in workplace democracy. Founded in 1982 by friends and University of Michigan grads Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw, the company grew from a humble corner deli to become a $60-million brand. In 2023, with the cofounders aging closer to retirement, they made a fateful decision: to convert their private business into an employee-owned business, via a Perpetual Purpose Trust (PPT). Employee-ownership trust models of business have become an important way to create democratic associations in everyday life.

The tradition began in the 1960s with Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister who would climb onto a hay wagon each summer on the island of Gotland to debate anyone who wished to speak. His open-air encounters inspired Denmark’s Folkemødet — the “People’s Meeting” — and in turn sparked a movement that has spread across Europe and beyond. Today, countries from Finland and Estonia to Germany and the UK host their own democracy festivals, where politics mingles with art, food, and conversation. Streets fill with tents and stages, musicians and activists, locals and ministers — all meeting face to face, arguing, eating, and celebrating together. What began as a modest experiment in open dialogue has become a continental ritual of democratic life.