About
About the Center for Applied Research on Democracy
The Center for Applied Research on Democracy (CARD) is a research initiative focused on understanding how American politics is changing—and what those changes mean for those working to build a more democratic and inclusive society.
Across the country, many of the institutions that once anchored political life are weakening. Trust in government, media, and public systems has declined. Political identities are becoming more fragmented, and people are increasingly forming their views and allegiances outside of traditional civic and institutional structures.
At the same time, new political formations are emerging—across media ecosystems, cultural spaces, and organizing environments—that are reshaping how people understand belonging, power, and participation.
CARD exists to make sense of this shifting terrain.
What We Do
CARD studies political change as it is happening. Our work focuses on how political identities are formed, how narratives take hold, and how organizations adapt in a rapidly evolving environment.
We combine field research, interviews with organizers and political actors, cultural analysis, and strategic synthesis to identify emerging dynamics before they become widely visible through traditional forms of analysis.
Our goal is not simply to describe political change, but to help others understand it well enough to respond effectively.
We work closely with organizers, movement leaders, and philanthropic partners to translate research into strategic insight—supporting efforts to build durable forms of participation, trust, and community power.
Our Approach
Much of the existing infrastructure for understanding politics relies on tools like polling, electoral analysis, or policy research. While valuable, these approaches often capture political behavior after it has already taken shape.
CARD focuses on an earlier stage.
We study how people are making sense of politics in their everyday lives—how they come to trust or distrust institutions, how they interpret social and economic change, and how they form attachments to political communities. This includes examining spaces that are often overlooked in traditional analysis, from emerging media environments to cultural and organizing spaces across the political spectrum.
By identifying these dynamics early, we aim to provide a clearer picture of the political environment as it is actually evolving.
Why It Matters
Many organizations working to strengthen democracy are navigating a landscape that looks very different from the one in which their strategies were developed.
When political identities are more fluid, when trust in institutions is uneven, and when shared narratives are harder to sustain, it becomes more difficult to build lasting participation and collective power.
CARD’s work is grounded in a simple premise: effective strategy depends on an accurate understanding of the terrain.
By helping the field better interpret political reality—rather than relying on outdated assumptions—we aim to support more adaptive, responsive, and durable approaches to democratic participation.
Team
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Daniel Martinez HoSang is a scholar, organizer, and public intellectual whose work explores race, political realignment, and the changing formations of American democracy. He is Professor of American Studies at Yale University and the author and co-author of multiple influential books, including Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity and Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California. His research has reshaped how scholars and organizers understand the multiracial right, reactionary populism, and the institutional conditions that enable racialized political projects to gain traction. At CARD, Daniel helps guide the center’s research agenda on democratic transformation, institutional erosion, and the right’s evolving strategies. He brings a deep commitment to connecting rigorous historical analysis with practical insight for movements navigating a volatile political landscape.
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Micah English is a political scientist, strategist, and writer whose work examines how social movements navigate institutional politics, build power, and confront democratic decline. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University, where her research focuses on the strategic choices social movement organizations make between electoral engagement, governance, and contentious politics. Beyond academia, she has served as a communications and strategy consultant to nonprofits, foundations, and movement organizations nationwide, advising on political positioning, narrative strategy, digital engagement, and long-term power-building across racial justice, gender justice, public health, and democratic reform efforts. At CARD, she leads research initiatives that bridge empirical scholarship with real-time political analysis, helping movements better understand the terrain on which they operate and the strategic choices before them.
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Minali Aggarwal is a researcher, writer, and organizer whose work examines race, political economy, and political culture. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Departments of Black Studies and Political Science at Yale University. Her dissertation focuses on the politics of anti-carceral movements in the U.S., examining how demands for political transformation are misinterpreted, co-opted, and diluted, and how social movement actors fight these outcomes. Before beginning graduate school, Minali worked as a data scientist for five years, an experience that continues to inform her critical analysis of metrics, policy evaluation, and the political uses of evidence and data. She currently serves as Research Director at the Black Solutions Lab, developing policy and advocacy strategies to advance economic and racial justice in Oakland, CA. At CARD, she contributes research on identity, organization, and institutional transformation, with particular attention to the ways that young people are understanding and orienting themselves to the shifting political terrain in the U.S.