Around the world, including here in the United States, evidence shows that authoritarians are dominating the information ecosystem. Orchestrated, well-resourced, and weaponized narratives are being used to justify repression and delegitimize democratic principles and institutions. At the same time, the word “democracy” has been appropriated and redefined to protect certain freedoms granted only to certain people and to legitimize unchecked power. These actors have learned from each other. They borrow from a shared authoritarian playbook to blend traditional propaganda with digital-age disinformation techniques to reshape public perception. The result is an environment in which democratic norms, institutions, and basic freedoms are under a coordinated, sustained attack.
Yet even as these threats grow, democracy advocates, journalists, election workers, civil society organizations, and everyday citizens are stepping up—often at great personal risk—to protect democratic rights and expose repression. They have been doing all of this without the benefit of a research-based narrative or the infrastructure to deploy it.
Until now. A new online resource, the Pro-Democracy Narrative Playbook, articulates a new research-based narrative and provides tools and resources to advance the cause of inclusive and participatory democracy in the United States.
Freedom Matters
Narratives are critical because they shape social norms and community expectations. They are the big stories through which people make sense of the world, process information, and decide whether and how to act. Narratives can either inoculate against or create a fertile environment for mis-, dis-, and malinformation. Controlling the narrative can be one of the most important tools that change agents have in advancing democracy and countering authoritarianism.
To better understand how to support pro-democracy efforts in the United States and around the world, Metropolitan Group (MG) mapped the existing narrative landscape to understand how and why anti-democracy narratives were working and to develop and test narratives that would effectively counter authoritarianism and advance inclusive democracy.
In developing that new narrative, MG included a review of literature, social media, political discourse, and more across 12 countries (including the United States) on 5 continents, supplemented by polling, focus groups, and key informant interviews. This work involved significant engagement with nongovernmental organizations, state and local government leaders, philanthropic networks, and advocates from a broad cross section of issues and geographies. Drawing on insights from this body of research globally and domestically, MG developed narrative concepts that were tested using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, such as focus groups, surveys, and literature scans.
Through that work, the team has developed, tested, refined, and is now sharing a new narrative to promote democracy: “Freedom Matters.” The narrative is grounded in the core values research has identified as being most closely associated with—and most authentic to—democracy, including freedom, fairness, and fearlessness.
The language employed in the “Freedom Matters” narrative and message framework provides guidance and inspiration for the development of communication content (e.g., blogs, social posts, policy papers, talking points, press releases, and more). It conveys the core ideas and evokes the values that increase understanding and support for democracy. It is not necessarily expected to be used verbatim, although it can be. The framework can also be used to inspire messaging on specific issues. The core message that conveys the narrative reads as follows:
This country was built on the right to have our voices heard, to make our own decisions, to be treated fairly by the justice system, and to vote in free and fair elections. These freedoms are at the heart of our democracy and our security. But they require checks and balances on power and government that is open, honest, and responsive to the people. Our country hasn’t fully lived up to these freedoms, but a strong democracy isn’t afraid to admit that and do the hard work of being better tomorrow than it is today.
Qualitative and quantitative research has validated the power and effectiveness of the above narrative and its supporting message framework (with strong agreement, relevance, and willingness to share) across all major demographic groups and across political party affiliation. This research has also shown that exposure to the narrative and messaging results in positive shifts in preference for democracy over authoritarianism or agreement with the key elements of democracy as captured in the narrative’s core message. Most importantly, 4 out of 10 survey respondents in the politically “disengaged” segment (estimated at 58% of the population) experience positive shifts in preference for democracy or agreement with the narrative’s core message based on initial exposure to the narrative and its messaging.
Building Narrative Power to Protect Democracy
Identifying the right narrative is only one crucial piece of the puzzle; champions for democracy also need the infrastructure to support its adoption and deployment.
Previous research performed by MG had found that both domestic and global pro-democracy efforts are working in isolation, with limited resources, and from a largely reactive posture, while authoritarian forces are shaping the “upstream” narrative environment where beliefs, attitudes, and norms are formed. Responding to the constant threats to democracy is essential and must continue. But it is not enough, because authoritarians are supported by an expansive and well-resourced infrastructure and increasingly control the upstream environment where public understanding of democracy is contested.
To protect and improve democracy, advocates must:
- more effectively defend against attacks; mis-, dis-, and malinformation; and repression by connecting to a powerful narrative with closely held values at its core
- advance proactive, values-based narratives that bolster understanding of and support for democratic principles and make it harder for anti-democratic ideas to take root in the first place
This requires shifting from a posture of defense to one of strategy, coherence, and narrative leadership.
A Pro-Democracy Narrative Playbook
To support the much-needed efforts of narrative leadership, the Pro-Democracy Narrative Playbook is an initiative that launched in January. It gives advocates the shared tools, research, and strategic alignment needed to compete in this crowded and contested information ecosystem. Rather than each organization needing to reinvent the wheel—or rely solely on issue-specific, time-bound campaigns—a dedicated infrastructure provides common narrative frameworks that are rooted in widely shared values, such as freedom, fairness, fearlessness, and collective responsibility. It enables organizations to translate these values into messages that resonate authentically with their communities while maintaining coherence across sectors.
To help make that possible, the launch of the playbook initiative coincided with the creation of a new online resource dedicated to sharing the “Freedom Matters” narrative, the research behind it, and tools to support its deployment across the social purpose sector. The “Pro-Democracy Narrative and Message Guide” constitutes a crucial step toward creation of the infrastructure necessary to support efforts to promote democracy both here in the United States and around the world. The guide and the broader site in which it is embedded share content openly and freely, consistent with the need to empower as many pro-democracy advocates as possible to access and deploy it.
In addition to sharing the narrative, its messaging, and the research that informed them both, the site also provides a worksheet to support adaptation of the narrative and examples of how it can be applied to a wide range of issues, including public health, religious liberty, and environmental justice, among others.
The site will serve as the hub for ongoing work to deploy the narrative in advancing democracy as part of the broader Pro-Democracy Narrative Playbook initiative.
The initiative creates pathways for rapid learning, adaptation, and cross-organizational coordination and allows advocates to identify emerging threats, test responses, and deploy unified messages at critical moments.
Moreover, pro-democracy narratives are most powerful when they are not confined to the realm of “democracy work” alone. Advocates for environmental justice, religious liberty, immigrants’ rights, fiscal responsibility, reproductive justice, and countless other movements all hold pieces of the broader democratic story. A shared democracy narrative infrastructure and the issue-specific cohorts referenced above will help these diverse movements to weave their individual missions into a larger, values-centered narrative about freedom, representation, community well-being, and the promise of self-governance.
The Time Is Now
The launch of the new narrative and the infrastructure are just the beginning. Tools alone are not enough; they matter only when they are put to use by people who understand what is at stake. We invite any and all individuals, organizations, and movements to use the open-source materials and resources on the microsite and the online “Pro-Democracy Narrative and Message Guide” in their own work and to share them with others.
For 2,500 years, democracy has represented humanity’s most ambitious political idea: that people can govern themselves, resolve conflict through debate rather than violence, and shape a future grounded in freedom, fairness, and shared power.
Its survival has never been guaranteed.
Its strength has always depended on the courage of those willing to stand up for it.
We, the people, must stand together to defend, advance, and improve inclusive democracy. And the time to do so is now.
This article was originally published as part of From Many, We, a Charles F. Kettering Foundation blog series that highlights the insights of thought leaders dedicated to the idea of inclusive democracy.
Kevin T. Kirkpatrick is the head of strategic communications at Metropolitan Group, a strategic and creative social impact agency that supports change agents in building a just, healthy, and sustainable world. Kirkpatrick is the principal author of Metropolitan Group’s approach to narrative as a tool of social change and has worked extensively on pro-democracy narratives and messaging both globally and in the United States.
Eric Friedenwald-Fishman is the founder and creative director of Metropolitan Group. He is a Social Behavior Change and Narrative pioneer and the author of the Public Will Building Framework. His book Marketing that Matters has been translated into six languages. Friedenwald-Fishman has led the 12 country, 5 continent Democracy Narratives initiative, and has served as the creative director for national narrative initiatives on clean and renewable energy, addressing structural racism, shared prosperity, clean water and other issues.
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