A manifesto for open source political intelligence
Open Politics is constructing a collaborative platform where political knowledge and analysis tools are freely accessible to all.”.We believe that understanding politics shouldn’t require special access, technical expertise, or institutional resources. The tools and methods for making sense of our complex political world should be available to everyone.
Traditional approaches to political understanding face a fundamental dilemma: qualitative methods don’t scale, while computational methods require technical expertise.Open Politics bridges this gap by allowing domain experts to define analytical frameworks in plain language while leveraging computational power to apply them at scale.
User-Defined Frameworks
Define your own concepts in natural language and apply them systematically
Methodological Transparency
Make analytical choices explicit and open to scrutiny
Most political analysis tools force information into predetermined categories—typically along a single left-right spectrum. This flattens the rich complexity of political thought.Open Politics enables multidimensional analysis where users can:
Create custom dimensions like “focus on economic policy” or “diplomatic vs. confrontational rhetoric”
Visualize results across these dimensions
Share and discuss their frameworks with others
This approach reflects the true complexity of political discourse better than binary classifications.
We invite you to join us in building this new kind of political intelligence infrastructure—one that empowers citizens rather than institutions, values transparency over proprietary methods, and creates space for diverse analytical perspectives.