The Democracy Project was a joint project of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Freedom House, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement (now Penn Washington), which produced a report of the same name in 2018 on the opinions of the American public regarding the concept of democratic governance and foreign policy with a series of accompanying recommendations. ¹

Background

The survey underlying the Democracy Project’s report was conducted by a Democratic Party-aligned polling firm, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, and a Republican Party-aligned polling firm, North Star, and commissioned jointly by three organizations: the George W. Bush Presidential Center (also known as Bush Center), a charitable organization that houses the George W. Bush Presidential Museum, the George W. Bush Presidential Library, and the George W. Bush Institute at the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas; Freedom House, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie to promote democracy and human rights; and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, at the time a joint project of the University of Pennsylvania and the now-defunct Biden Foundation, which, following then-President Joe Biden’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in 2024, was absorbed into Penn Washington. ^{2 3 4 5 1}

Methodology

The data featured in the Democracy Project was drawn from ten focus groups of different segments of the American public, including small business owners, right-of-center white male voters, left-of-center voters, people aged 23 to 35, leaders in religious communities, members of the military and veterans, public servants, social media content makers, civic leaders, and educators, alongside a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,400 adults with an “oversample” of 300 “opinion elites” who possessed four-year college degrees and reportedly followed the news and voted regularly. ¹

Findings

According to the Democracy Project’s survey, the American public’s support for the concept of democratic governance was strong, though certain groups, particularly racial minorities and young adults, reported that they felt less of a benefit from the prevailing system and were less convinced of the importance of living in a democracy. Additionally, the survey found that respondents were often concerned with the influence of money in politics as well as racism and discrimination, and generally supported the idea of the U.S. government “taking steps” to support democracy and human rights in other countries. ⁶

Recommendations

In addition to publishing the findings of its public opinion survey, the Democracy Project’s report also included a series of general recommendations, including making civic calls to action regarding activities such as voting, volunteering, and staying informed; publicizing the risk of civic inaction, though not in a language that would discourage “hope”; supporting civic education, such as efforts to include civic education in school curriculums; and publicizing concrete examples, particularly non-military ones, of “success stories” of America’s support for democracy and human rights in other countries. ¹

Funding

The Democracy Project was conducted with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (also known as the Knight Foundation), a Miami, Florida-based left-of-center private foundation focused on funding media-related projects. ^{7 1}

Leadership

The foreword of the Democracy Project’s report was signed by the heads of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and Freedom House at the time of the document’s publication in June 2018. The individuals were respectively Holly Kuzmich, managing director at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation; Antony Blinken, a Democratic foreign policy operative who would go on to serve as U.S. Secretary of State from 2021 to 2025 in the Biden administration; and Michael J. Abramowitz, who would later serve as director of Voice of America during the Biden administration. ^{8 9 10 1}

1. “The Democracy Project: Reversing a Crisis of Confidence.” The Democracy Project. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/06222018_Democracy_Project_Press_Release.pdf
2. “George W. Bush Presidential Center.” George W. Bush Presidential Center. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://www.bushcenter.org/about-us
3. “Our History.” Freedom House. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://freedomhouse.org/about-us/our-history
4. Grantland, William. “Joe Biden’s public career is waning. The Penn Biden Center’s influence has faded with it.” The Daily Pennsylvanian. September 22, 2025. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://www.thedp.com/article/2025/09/penn-biden-center-presidential-trajectory
5. Press Release: “The Democracy Project: Reversing a Crisis of Confidence.” The Democracy Project. June 26, 2018. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://www.democracyprojectreport.org/report
6. Press Release: “The Democracy Project: Reversing a Crisis of Confidence.” The Democracy Project. June 26, 2018. Accessed January 5, 2026.
7. “About.” Knight Foundation. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://knightfoundation.org/about/
8. “Michael Abramowitz.” U.S. Agency for Global Media. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/ceo-and-entity-leadership/michael-abramowitz/
9. “Holly Kuzmich.” George W. Bush Presidential Center. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://www.bushcenter.org/people/holly-kuzmich
10. “Antony Blinken (2021-2025).” University of Virginia: Miller Center. Accessed January 5, 2026. https://millercenter.org/antony-blinken-2021-2025