Now more than ever it matters to understand shared challenges posed by power, technology, and democracy.

We believe that debates about technology and regulation are often debates about how to understand, interpret, and apply the ideal of democracy and what it means — in complex, modern states, which rely on technologies that most people have neither the interest nor expertise to understand — for citizens to govern themselves and forge their collective state.

We have four key goals to tackle in this research:

• Enhancing public understanding of digital technologies and their societal effects.
• Exposing the global environmental consequences of digital technology
• Proposing solutions for the harmful impact of digital technologies on workers’ rights
• Building informed trust in digital technology and asserting the primacy of democratic values over corporate interests