Intellectual lineage
The thinkers behind the work.
Eleven thinkers across two and a half centuries have made the strongest case for what we call civic experimentation — that public institutions should run small, observable, honest tests of their own ideas, and revise in light of what they learn. Each profile traces the argument and ties it back to the practical work this organization tries to do.
Core lineage — eight thinkers
→ Federalism
James Madison
1751–1836 · United States
Multiple centers of governance capable of trying different approaches. Variation creates comparison. Comparison creates learning.
→ Local Institutions
Alexis de Tocqueville
1805–1859 · France / United States
Democratic life flourishes through local participation. Citizens learn judgment through engagement.
→ Dispersed Knowledge
Friedrich Hayek
1899–1992 · Austria / United Kingdom
No central authority possesses sufficient information to optimize society globally. Progress requires decentralized experimentation.
→ Piecemeal Social Engineering
Karl Popper
1902–1994 · Austria / United Kingdom
Social improvement through small interventions, observable outcomes, reversibility. Good institutions discover error early.
→ Successive Approximation
Charles Lindblom
1917–2018 · United States
Policymakers cannot optimize globally. Progress happens through incremental adjustment, each step informed by the last.
→ Experimental Society
Donald Campbell
1916–1996 · United States
Policy should be hypothesis-driven. Programs should be designed, measured, compared, and revised.
→ Polycentric Governance
Elinor Ostrom
1933–2012 · United States
Multiple overlapping decision centers create resilience. Successful approaches spread voluntarily.
→ Democracy as Inquiry
John Dewey
1859–1952 · United States
Democracy is collective problem solving. Communities identify problems, test solutions, revise beliefs, and improve.
Extended lineage — three further influences
→ Human Scale
E.F. Schumacher
1911–1977 · Germany / United Kingdom
Institutions should remain proportionate to human beings. Localism is a question of scale.
→ Local Knowledge
Jane Jacobs
1916–2006 · United States / Canada
Cities are complex living systems. Local context is often the very information needed to make policy work.
→ Practical Wisdom
Michael Oakeshott
1901–1990 · United Kingdom
Much political knowledge is practical, inherited, and tacit. Experiments are disciplined ways of learning within existing institutions.