A program of the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). CDDRL is a research center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
The Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective was inaugurated in 2013 within Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. It aims to investigate problems with American democracy, including polarization and gridlock, poor governance, and declining trust in government institutions. It also analyzes policy initiatives and institutional reforms that have the greatest potential to address those features of American democracy that are most impairing its performance. An important and distinctive feature of the Program on American Democracy’s work is to study American problems in comparative perspective, with particular attention to the structure and functioning of other established democracies.