Democracy Institute
The Democracy Institute is a think tank based in Washington, DC and London. It was founded in 2006.
On its website the Institute says that "We commonly address public policy in comparative terms. Many of our research projects, therefore, have a transatlantic or international flavor. We are currently conducting and commissioning work in the following areas: democratization; education policy; electoral studies; the European Union; fiscal studies; health care; international relations; obesity; and the regulation of risk."
The Institute's founding Director, Patrick Basham, is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, and was previously the founding director of the Social Affairs Center at the Canadian Fraser Institute.
The Institute's Advisory Council includes Chris Edwards, Christopher Preble and Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute, Martin Zelder of Duke University and Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute. Nigel Ashford of the Institute for Humane Studies is also a member of the Council as is Jeannie Cameron, who was formerly employed by British American Tobacco. Jeremy Lott, formerly of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is a Senior Fellow.
A 2006 Democracy Institute book by then Senior Fellow Dr. John Luik on Why Graphic Warnings Don't Work was acknowledged as being "made possible by funding provided by Imperial Tobacco Group PLC".
In July 2020, the Democracy Institute conducted a poll of the 2020 United States presidential election for the Sunday Express newspaper. At a time when polling by established pollsters was showing Joe Biden with a statistically significant lead over Donald Trump, the Democracy Institute asserted that the two were tied in the popular vote, but with Trump having an advantage in swing states that would give him a 309 to 229 victory in the Electoral College.
