Democracy / mySociety

Powerful ways to shape decisions and engage politicians for campaigners, activists… and citizens

Within our Democracy practice we seek to support meaningful participation in democracy and access to political information, improving the ability of people around the world to make their voices heard and to hold governments to account.

We work in partnership with civil society and government to build mechanisms for citizens to influence decision-making, giving people a voice in shaping the future of their communities.

If you belong to an organisation that runs campaigns, hopes to bring about change, or relies on getting the voice of your supporters heard, you’ll find that our tools give you a head start.

We run projects, services and research in the UK and globally that support participation in society’s democratic systems, and give access to political information and data.

Or maybe you’re simply a citizen who wants to help change the world. We can help you, too.

TheyWorkForYou for citizens and campaigners

See who your MP is

As well as how they’ve voted, and what they’ve said.

Keep up with the UK’s Parliaments on TheyWorkForYou

Don’t miss the action

Keep track of mentions in Parliament of the things that matter to you.

Set up automatic alerts with TheyWorkForYou

WriteToThem for citizens and campaigns

Get in touch with politicians

WriteToThem provides a very easy way for people to contact their elected representatives, at all levels — even if they don’t know who they are. All that’s needed is a postcode. Try it out here.

Running a campaign and want your supporters to write to their MPs? WriteToThem can be very simply integrated with your own website. Find out more here.

Supporting parliaments around the world

Beyond the UK we work with civil society partners and parliaments around the world, to support moves towards greater transparency within parliaments. This includes improved flows of useful open data, and advice on the most effective ways to enhance democratic engagement from citizens.

In partnership with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, we run the Digital Democracy Audit programme, assessing the digital capability of a parliament and making actionable practical suggestions for improvements; upskilling members, and bringing the benefits of this improved access to more citizens.

This builds on our work in sub-Saharan Africa, where we have supported a number of parliamentary websites to monitor politicians’ activities — notably in Kenya and South Africa.

Find out more about the Parliamentary Monitoring sites we’ve built with partners.

Exploring participatory democracy

Beyond representative democracy we have been looking into how digital tools can be used to support greater participation in democracy.

This has included research into how digital tools can be used as part of the process of running a Citizens’ Assembly, an overview of citizens assembly websites, and a literature review of the state of digital public engagement.

Public Square An action research project

mySociety, in collaboration with the Democratic Society, worked with several local authorities and communities through an action research project to explore ways to improve citizen engagement in democracy.

See the Public Square website.

Innovation in Democracy Research to inform Local Government

mySociety worked with Involve, the RSA and the Democratic Society to support three local authorities in this project. The councils are trialing models of deliberative democracy, to discover how best to involve citizens in decision-making. Read more about it here.