Democracy's Cookbook
Recipes for political equality and popular sovereignty
Data-driven stories about electoral systems, representation, and the many ways people make democracy work around the world.
Stories
Amsterdam 2026: The Green Shift
GroenLinks takes the lead, parties multiply, but minority representation stays steady at 36%.
Read the story →Amsterdam 2022: Who Represents the Jordaan?
How migration, mosques, and municipal elections shape representation in one of Europe's most diverse cities.
Read the story →Building Longer, Better Tables
Democracy's Cookbook is a collection of data-driven stories exploring how electoral rules shape political representation. Each story combines interactive maps, precinct-level election data, and neighborhood demographics to show how votes are translated into political power, and how communities are represented through electoral and party systems.
The saying that we need to “build longer tables, not higher walls” probably originated in lessons from Parashat B'haalot'cha, but Chef José Andrés has made it into a motto for all of us who see the connection, as he says, “that we are not Democrats or Republicans, Americans or immigrants, meat eaters or vegans. We are truly the people of the world, who cook and eat and drink together.”
Most of the data used in these stories is provided by CLEO (Comparative Local Elections Observatory), an open dataset of municipal election results joined to precinct-level demographics across the world.