Defend Democracy: What?

Defend Democracy is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit civil society organisation. Our mission is to defend and strengthen democracy against foreign, domestic and technological threats. Defend Democracy is registered as a nonprofit foundation in The Hague, the international city of peace, justice and security. We work transatlantically: most of our day-to-day work is done in Brussels and (virtually) in Washington DC.

Defend Democracy: How?

Defend Democracy works at the intersection of democracy, security and technology. To achieve our mission, we operate on the front-line: building awareness, shaping advocacy and taking action. In particular, we help build societal resilience and civil preparedness to hybrid and technological threats, for a whole-of-society defence of democracy.

Our activities range from community and capacity building for democracy defenders to convening high-level democracy stakeholders for influential working sessions; advocating for whole-of-society resilience to hybrid threats to democracy, for the regulation of Big Tech and fixing the information disorder; and from exposing organised information manipulation to training practitioners on handling disinformation and other harmful information activities.

Defend Democracy: Why?

The need for an organisation like Defend Democracy has never been more evident. Democracy is under pressure worldwide, even in countries where we took it for granted. For years, there has been:

1) foreign interference in our democracies, also known as hybrid threats to democracy

2) democratic backsliding, affective polarisation, domestic extremism and terrorism

3) technological threats to democracy

Unfortunately, many governments and other stakeholders are doing too little to defend our democracies against foreign interference, to prevent further polarisation and erosion of democracy “at home”, and to protect our democracies from technological threats. Worse, few are grasping that these threats are interconnected and are reinforcing each other. The future of our democracies depends on building resilience to this triple threat to democracy as of now.

Because countries fail in their duty to defend democracy against foreign, domestic and technological threats to democracy, Defend Democracy steps into the breach. Not by publishing reports but as a do-tank that gets to work. Defend Democracy proposes a Zeitenwende for democracy. We encourage citizens, democratic governments and their international alliances (EU, NATO) to build whole-of-society resilience against the triple threat to democracy. And as civil society actor we help them do it.

“Defend Democracy!” is a call to action to governments, lawmakers and institutions, and a name that invites everyone to join us in being active citizens.