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Core Ideas

Citizens

Democracy requires responsible citizens who can make sound decisions about their future, and can act on these decisions. Through joint learning exchanges, Kettering studies how citizens might accept their responsibility, make sound decisions about what is in the public’s interest, and join forces to act on those decisions.

Communities

Democracy requires a community, or a society of citizens, that can work together. We research the way citizens face persistent problems in their communities. These problems, such as poverty, violence, and gaps in educational achievement, require citizens, communities, and institutions to work together to address them.

Institutions

Democracy requires institutions with public legitimacy that contribute to strengthening society. While institutions can affect the public’s ability to govern itself, they can also unintentionally weaken self-rule by substituting expert knowledge for public knowledge. Aligning institutional routines with citizens’ work is the central challenge. 

Kettering Foundation News

Kettering Foundation announces promotions of key staff

Written by: Kettering Staff

The foundation is strengthening its capacity to meet the needs of democracy in a changing world.

The Psychology of Polarization

Written by: Kettering Staff

In December 2022, we invited Mylien Duong, senior director of research of the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI), to join us. CDI uses the psychological processes that influence decision-making to create tools that can help students and professionals have conversations across differences. We asked, What roles do unconscious mental processes play in how we understand and respond to shared problems, and how can these tools help reduce the levels of political mistrust, division, and animosity?

Lessons for Journalists from Amanda Ripley’s Book, High Conflict: Part II

Written by: Kettering Staff

Earlier this year, journalist Amanda Ripley spoke to Kettering Foundation staff about her book High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. In this second in a series of two blog posts, Jennifer Brandel, who has collaborated with Kettering on journalism experiments in streng

Lessons for Journalists from Amanda Ripley’s Book, High Conflict: Part I

Written by: Kettering Staff

Earlier this year, journalist Amanda Ripley spoke to Kettering Foundation staff about her book High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. In this first in a series of two blog posts, Jennifer Brandel, who has collaborated with Kettering on journalism experiments in strengt

An Ongoing Struggle: Democratic Ideals and Illiberal Resistance

Written by: Kettering Staff

In November 2022, we invited Kevin C. O’Leary, director of Saving Democracy, to join us. Saving Democracy seeks to build a pro-democracy coalition from Liz Cheney conservatives to Bernie Sanders progressives and will conduct educational “deep canvassing” in selected congressional swing districts, focusing on the nation’s democratic tradition and individual liberty in a constitutional democracy. They plan to ask the business community to use the power of their political donations to reward political leaders who are committed to democracy. A research fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine, O’Leary also teaches in the Political Science Department at Chapman University. He is the author of Saving Democracy: A Plan for Real Representation in America (2006) and Madison’s Sorrow: Today’s War on the Founders and America’s Liberal Ideal (2020).