Verification, Deliberation, Accountability: A new framework for tackling epistemic collapse and renewing democracy

In this guest report journalist and founder of Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins, and the academic Dr Natalie Martin, set out a new framework to help us understand how epistemic security defines the health of a democracy, and that without it, democracies hollow out and ultimately collapse.

The authors introduce the VDA Framework: a way of diagnosing when democracy is functioning, when it is hollowing, and when it has descended into simulation. 

The framework rests on a simple proposition: democracy only works when verification, deliberation, and accountability are obvious to the people, and trusted by them.At Demos we are working on practical ways to upgrade democracy, to rebuild public trust and mend the broken relationships between state and citizen. Trusted information supply chains are critical to that, which is why we are committed to making the case for epistemic security, to secure our information supply chains, just as we would other critical resources such as oil, gas, or semiconductors.

We hope this contribution helps policymakers understand the scale of the challenges we face, and focuses efforts on improving the points at which citizens can better engage in democracy.