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March 13, 2026

Inaugural Research Workshop: Democracy's Meanings

Large crowd of people at a protest in Washington, DC

"Democracy" means different things to, and is significant in different ways for, different people—scholars, politicians, activists, and others. What are democracy's meanings, and what are the implications—for scholarship, and for efforts to protect democracy—of the lack of a consensual understanding of democracy? In this workshop, four presenters addressed these questions, with feedback provided by participants.

This event was sponsored by the Georgetown Democracy Initiative.

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Mark Fisher is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown and founding director of the Georgetown Initiative on Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Citizenship (AIDC).

Katherine Krimmel is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science in Barnard College (Columbia University).

Stephen Sawyer is a professor in the Department of History and Politics at the American University of Paris.

Maria Snegovaya is a postdoctoral fellow in Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service; a senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and a fellow at the Illiberalism Studies Program at George Washington University.