Preventing Authoritarian Abuse of Power
Investing in Strategic Resources
Authoritarian threats and abuses of government power are harmful and all too frequent due to intentional flaws in government institutions that allow for corruption. Examples include the use of government power to separate families at the border, the coordinated insurrection on January 6th, 2021, and the Supreme Court’s ethical violations and disregard for precedent. We need to sustain and strengthen our approach to holding government leaders accountable.
Building Guardrails to Defend Our Democracy
When government officials avoid accountability, they are emboldened to repeat abuses, disregard long-standing governing norms and use their official powers to advance personal or political prerogatives. Over time, this dynamic erodes the rule of law and the public’s trust in government.
By addressing the underlying issues that allow abuses of power to manifest, we can increase confidence and participation in our democracy.
The Preventing Authoritarian Abuse of Power Initiative invests in organizations that are:
- Working with Congress and through the courts to create robust guardrails against abuse
- Building more resilient federal institutions that can withstand future efforts to politicize their work
- Holding people who have engaged in unethical or illegal conduct accountable
Our Team
Winny Chen
Associate Director, Governance
Anne Morley
Senior Program Associate, Governance
Sean Raymond
Senior Program Associate, Governance
Safa Syed
Program Associate, Governance
Nathaniel J. Turner
Program Manager, Governance
Learn More About Our Work
Find more Ideas-
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Explore Our Other Governance Initiatives
Governance strategies seek to strengthen our democratic system to respond to abuse and prevent future political violence.
State and Local Accountability
State and local government abuses of power disproportionately impact communities of color and other historically disenfranchised groups. We invest in organizers, advocates, and networks focused on these abuses and who have long been under-resourced in their fight for accountability.
Learn more about this effort
Representative Institutions
In order to have effective and representative governing institutions in our multiracial democracy, they must be structurally transformed to be inclusive and reflective of our country’s diversity.
We seek to advance structural changes that give each person equal power — accounting for the historical lack of representation of communities of color, and increasing the responsiveness of government institutions to the needs of all communities.
Learn more about this effort