How can civic educators and civil society organisations better understand whether their work contributes to democratic resilience – and what can we meaningfully measure?

In our latest NECE Campus session, we welcomed Dr Sophie L. Vériter, Founder and Executive Director of the Global Society Foundation, who introduced the Democratic Resilience Instrument (DRI) – a new framework designed to assess changes in democratic resilience among participants in civic-tech and civic education programmes.

Developed in response to the lack of shared approaches to defining and measuring democratic resilience, the instrument examines four dimensions:

• Media and political literacy – understanding democratic institutions, political processes and the media environment, including the ability to recognise misinformation.

• Throughput legitimacy – perceptions of the fairness, inclusiveness and accountability of democratic decision-making processes.

• Democratic political culture – commitment to democratic norms, openness to differing views and empathy towards others.

• Democratic stress tolerance – the ability to uphold democratic principles in times of crisis, disagreement or uncertainty.

The instrument uses questionnaires completed before and after participation in a programme to identify changes in knowledge, attitudes and perceptions. Organisations can assess all four dimensions or select those most relevant to their work.

Importantly, the DRI is still under development. The Global Society Foundation is currently gathering feedback from practitioners and researchers, with pilot studies and scientific validation planned for 2027.

The session offered an opportunity to consider both the practical applications and methodological challenges of measuring democratic resilience – including how to distinguish meaningful change from other influences, and how such an instrument might serve different educational contexts.

We thank Sophie for sharing this work at an early stage and everyone who joined us for their questions and reflections.

Resources:

• DRI Working Paper

• DRI Methodology

Speaker

Dr. Sophie L. Vériter is the Founder and Executive Director of the Global Society Foundation, where she leads work on democratic resilience and civic technology infrastructure. A political scientist specialising in misinformation, strategic communications, and democracy, she holds a PhD in Security and Global Affairs from Leiden University and an MPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford. Her research has appeared in International Affairs, the Journal of Common Market Studies, and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, as well as Tech Policy Press and Carnegie. Sophie’s work has been recognised with international awards and fellowships including from The Europaeum, Harvard Kennedy School, and the Kofi Annan Foundation.