GCRD advances the case for measuring democracy’s relational foundations at Bristol seminar
The discussion explored how public discourse can inform a broader approach to democratic resilience.
The Global Centre for Rehumanising Democracy (GCRD) recently brought its research on public discourse and democratic resilience to the University of Bristol, making the case for closer attention to the human relationships on which democratic institutions depend.
GCRD Founding Executive Director Dr Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob addressed the Technology, Democracy and Cognition group (TeDCog), an interdisciplinary research group in Bristol’s School of Psychology and Neuroscience, led by Professor Stephan Lewandowsky. The group studies the relationships between human cognition, online technologies and democracy.
The presentation, titled, “From Institutions to Interactions: the Democracy Discourse Index and the Cognitive Conditions of Democratic Communication” drew on a forest-fire analogy. False claims may provide the spark, but the condition of the public conversation helps determine whether they take hold. Persistent distrust, hopelessness and the erosion of mutual recognition can leave democratic societies vulnerable even where formal institutions remain intact.
This perspective broadens the focus of democratic protection. Alongside countering misinformation and strengthening institutions, it calls for sustained investment in the conditions that allow citizens to listen, disagree constructively and believe that collective action can make a difference.
GCRD’s Democracy Discourse Index (DDI) provides an empirical framework for examining these conditions through empathy, civility, trust and democratic agency. Its international university network combines rigorous human coding, intercoder reliability calibration and validated AI analysis to make the quality of public discourse measurable across topics and contexts.
Drawing on GCRD’s recent UK studies, the presentation explored why political appeals to hope can struggle when it reaches distrustful audiences. It also identified more constructive possibilities in exchanges grounded in lived experience, mutual assistance and meaningful participation. The implication for democratic leadership is that hope requires credible opportunities for citizens to influence the circumstances of their lives.
The discussion with Professor Lewandowsky considered the relationship between discourse and democratic health, bringing GCRD’s emerging evidence into dialogue with research on cognition, misinformation and democratic resilience.
For policymakers, educators and civic institutions, the work raises a practical challenge: how to recognise and respond to the deterioration of civic relationships before division becomes entrenched. GCRD’s research connects that challenge to a wider programme of democratic renewal in which institutional reform, public trust and citizens’ capacity to act are considered together.
Watch the seminar · Read Dr Jacob’s reflection, When an Arsonist Cannot Burn Down a Forest · Explore the Democracy Discourse Index
