01 · Knowledge Atlas
Switch to graph viewAn encyclopedia of social systems
Theories, political philosophies, economic models, institution types and forms of self-government — each idea traced through theory, real examples, critique and results.
All entries · A–Z
- DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation)Institution typeAn organisation whose rules and treasury are encoded in smart contracts on a blockchain, usually governed by token-holder votes.
- Data commons and data governanceConceptArrangements in which data are pooled and governed as a shared resource by a community, under rules about access, use and benefit, rather than held exclusively by firms or states. Includes data cooperatives, data trusts, open-data commons and Indigenous data sovereignty.
- David D. FriedmanThinkerEconomist who made the consequentialist case for anarcho-capitalism in The Machinery of Freedom (1973).
- David GraeberThinkerAmerican anthropologist and anarchist activist known for Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), critiques of bureaucracy and work, and a leading role in the Occupy movement.
- Debian Project constitutionExperimentThe volunteer Debian operating-system project has governed itself since 1998 under a written constitution: developers elect a Project Leader each year, a Technical Committee settles technical disputes, and general resolutions use ranked Condorcet-style voting with supermajorities for foundational changes.
- Decide Madrid and the Consul software (since 2015)ExperimentMadrid City Council's online participation platform, launched in 2015, combining proposals, debates, polls and participatory budgeting. Its open-source software, Consul, is reused by many other public bodies.
- Decidim BarcelonaExperimentBarcelona City Council's open-source participation platform, launched in 2016 and now used by many public bodies.
- Deliberative democracyConceptThe view that democratic legitimacy depends on informed public deliberation, often organised through randomly selected mini-publics.
- Deliberative legitimacyTheoryThe view that collective decisions are legitimate to the extent that free and equal citizens could accept them after public deliberation, rather than merely because preferences were aggregated.
- Deliberative pollingMechanismA random sample of citizens is surveyed, given balanced information, deliberates with experts and in small groups, and is surveyed again; the change is presented as considered public opinion. Devised by James Fishkin; first run in the UK in 1994 and required by law for constitutional amendments in Mongolia since 2017.
- DemarchyExperimentJohn Burnheim's 1985 proposal to replace elections and multi-purpose territorial states with many specialised functional bodies whose members are chosen by lot from those affected. Never implemented.
- DemocracyNextorganisationInternational research and action institute, registered as a Dutch foundation, that promotes citizens' assemblies and other institutions based on sortition, deliberation and rotation, and advises governments on making them permanent.
- Democratic confederalismIdeologyAbdullah Öcalan's programme of stateless self-government through local communes and councils federated across ethnic and religious lines, drawing on Murray Bookchin. Applied in Rojava (northeast Syria), whose status changed in 2025–2026.
- Digital identityMechanismA government- or community-issued credential that lets people authenticate and sign electronically.
- Digital statehoodConceptDelivery of core state functions — identity, registries, services — through digital infrastructure, sometimes to people outside the territory.
- DistributismExperimentAn economic and social programme developed by G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, drawing on Catholic social teaching, that would spread productive property widely among families and small enterprises. No state has adopted it as an economic system.
- Douglass NorthThinkerAmerican economic historian who defined institutions as the humanly devised 'rules of the game', explained long-run economic performance by institutional change and path dependence, and shared the 1993 Nobel memorial prize in economics.
- Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)ExperimentA financial free zone established in 2004 with its own civil and commercial laws and English-language common-law courts, inside the civil-law UAE.
- Dutch Republic (Republic of the Seven United Provinces)ExperimentA confederation of seven sovereign provinces (1579/1588–1795) governed by a States General voting by province, provincial States dominated by urban regents, and stadtholders from the House of Orange. It became Europe's leading commercial power and a haven of relative religious toleration, but its unanimity rules and factional strife were notorious.