About the Center for Democratic Readiness

The Center for Democratic Readiness addresses the social rules that make democracy possible. While the need for legal and procedural safeguards is widely recognized, democracy also relies on citizens to refrain from morally dismissing one another. This maintains the social trust and trust in institutions that every system of self-governance requires.

We define, train, and reinforce these social rules. Through short exercises and labs, participants learn to reconstruct opposing positions in ways that make moral dismissal impossible. This is not about agreeing with every view or debating others; it is about cultivating the discipline to reason through disagreement independently and responsibly.

Democracy can survive violations of law or procedure, but when citizens treat one another as illegitimate actors, the system itself collapses. By strengthening these foundational habits, the Center ensures that democracy has the internal capacity to endure and thrive.

About Ilana Redstone

Ilana Redstone is a scholar of democratic theory and political culture. Her work focuses on the assumptions and practices that sustain democratic life, particularly the social rules that allow citizens to reason through disagreement without moral dismissal and without contempt.

Redstone’s research identifies a foundational problem overlooked by most civic and policy interventions: the inability of citizens to process opposing viewpoints without condemning those who hold them. The Center for Democratic Readiness was created to translate this diagnosis into actionable practice.

She develops exercises, labs, and curricula designed to train this essential civic capacity, emphasizing rigorous reasoning over surface civility. Redstone’s approach is grounded in principles, not partisanship: the goal is a democracy that can endure disagreement, regardless of ideology.

FAQs

  • Another way to put this question is, why can’t I just ask someone who holds that view to explain it to me? While talking across differences is good for relationship and trust building, there are two reasons you need to first do this work yourself.

    1. If you rely on the other person’s explanation to convince you the position is “okay,” you’re making your acceptance conditional on the other person’s ability to explain themselves.

    2. In a democracy, no one gets to serve as moral gatekeeper. It’s rooted in the assumption that people are fundamentally decent. Which means that any sincerely-held position can be arrived at through morally legitimate means. Where “morally legitimate” means whatever YOU accept as reasonable.

  • Yes, I’m aware. I refer you again to the three sets of rules. You may have doubts, that’s okay. Here’s the deal, though. You know how gravity doesn’t care if you believe in it?

    Well, democracy doesn’t work if people can’t follow the social rules. Whether you believe that or not.

    The Center exists to help people understand this and to do their part to follow those rules.

  • No. I’m not condoning or condemning moral relativism. Moral relativism is a risk when goals aren’t clear. As soon as goal are made clear and explicit, then we gain the ability to evaluate ideas, policies, and arguments in the context of whether they move us closer to or further from those goals.