Democracy Initiative awards 24 Democracy Catalyst Grants to projects across campus

The University of Notre Dame’s Democracy Initiative has announced a new round of multi-year Democracy Catalyst Grants that will support research, education, and convenings led by faculty and students during the 2025–26 academic year.

In its second year, the Democracy Catalyst Grant opportunity drew 48 applications from six of Notre Dame’s colleges and schools and several interdisciplinary institutes and student groups.

These investments, made through the Democracy Catalyst Fund, advance projects that closely align with the Initiative’s mission to strengthen democratic institutions, cultivate civic culture, and connect scholars and practitioners working at the forefront of democratic research around the world. In all, 24 faculty and student teams will examine pressing questions facing democracies today. These projects will create new opportunities for student learning and leadership in democratic research while bringing global scholars to campus through conferences, workshops, and symposia.

“Together, these grants represent the Initiative’s ongoing commitment to supporting rigorous scholarship that informs public debate, deepens civic understanding, and engages communities across borders,” said Joel Day, managing director of the Democracy Initiative.

The projects include multidisciplinary collaborations among more than 60 historians, data scientists, theologians, economists, and political scientists, as well as initiatives led by undergraduate and graduate students that expand the University’s capacity for democracy-focused research.

More details on each Catalyst-funded project, including descriptions and principal investigators, can be found on the Democracy Initiative’s website.

Launched in April 2024, the Democracy Initiative seeks to establish Notre Dame as a global leader in the study of democracy and as a convenor for conversations that defend democratic values and shape engaged citizens.

Funded Projects

Research

• Enrique Seira Bejarano, professor in the Department of Economics, will lead an evaluation on how Mexico’s 2025 judicial reform affects judicial independence, performance, and the rule of law. Bejarano will be joined by co-principal investigators Alejandro Ponce and Julio Rios.

• Muna Adem, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, will lead an investigation into how and why group identities shape trust and cooperative behavior while identifying the conditions under which trust can extend across group boundaries. Adem will be joined by co-principal investigator Paul Kyumin Lee, a doctoral student and Notre Dame Presidential Fellow.

• Fiona Rodger, a doctoral student in American Politics, will lead an investigation into how the framing of laws banning transgender athletes from participating in sports that align with their chosen gender identity influence individuals’ level of support for transgender sports bans.

• Margaret Pfeil, a teaching professor in the Department of Theology and the Institute for Social Concerns, will produce an edited volume called “Religious Nationalism: Questions, Stories, and Practical Engagements.” Pfeil will be joined by Associate Professor David Clairmont.

• Gessica de Freitas, a research assistant at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, will lead an investigation into the growing empowerment of congresses in presidential systems that have historically been dominated by strong executives.

• Jeremi Panganiban, a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology, will lead a project examining how moral economies shape daily life in subsistence fishing communities undergoing rapid economic development.

• Susan L. Ostermann, an associate professor of global affairs and political science, will lead a project called “From Slacktivism to the Successful Gen Z Movement: Political Change and Democratic Quality in Nepal.” Ostermann will be joined by co-principal Investigators Madhav Joshi, a research professor in the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and associate director of the Peace Accords Matrix; Shrinivas Gautam; a research scientist in the Pulte Institute for Global Development; Lila Kumar Khatiwada, a senior research scientist at the Pulte Institute; and Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat, an assistant professor of tech ethics and global affairs.

• Joe Parent; a professor of political science, will lead a project called “Backlash to Globalization or Democracy? How American Trade Protectionism Affects Polarization and Democratic Attitudes in Brazil.” Parent will be joined by co-principal investigators Luis Schiumerini and Jazmin Sierra, both assistant professors in the Department of Political Science.

• Saehwan Lee, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, will conduct a large-scale randomized survey experiment with nationally representative participants to test how distinct or convergent status threat framings causally influence support for far-right politics and mobilization. Lee will be joined by co-principal investigators Sharon Yoon, an associate professor of Korean studies, and Dahjin Kim, an assistant professor of Asian studies and global affairs.

• Mayra Ortiz Ocaña, a doctoral student in political science, will lead an investigation into how populist executives dismantle or co-opt fourth-branch institutions, with a specific focus on Mexico under President López Obrador. Ocaña will be joined by co-principal investigator Benjamín García-Holgado, an assistant professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware.

• Gabrielle Grow, a doctoral student in constitutional studies and political theory and a Notebaert Premier Fellow, will lead an exploration of how state-level disestablishment in the early United States affected membership rates among new and established religious denominations.

• Ali Altiok, a doctoral student in peace studies and political science, will lead a project called “Competing for Youth Attention in the Age of Political Disinformation: Experimental evidence on the capacity of Kenyan youth to detect deepfake images.”

• Diane Desierto, a professor of law and global affairs and faculty director of the LL.M. Program in International Human Rights Law and the global director of the Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic, will lead a project called “Exiled Women Leaders: Human Rights Impacts and Strategies of Resilience against Authoritarian Persecution in the Americas.” Desierto will be joined by research associate and research fellow Faisal Yamil Meneses.

• Shay Hafner and Amy Brooke Grauley, both doctoral students in political science, will lead a project called “Method-Aware Respondents and the Reliability of Online Political Science Experiments.”

• Emma Briant, a visiting associate professor in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, will lead a project called “Persuasive Procurement: How AI is Sold and Selected for Military and Intelligence Agencies.” Briant will be joined by co-pincipal investigator Walter Scheirer, the Dennis O. Doughty Collegiate Professor of Engineering.

• Guillermo Trejo, a professor of political science and a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and director of the Notre Dame Violence and Transitional Justice Lab (V-TJ Lab), will lead a project called “Where are the Good Samaritans in Violent Democracies? Designing and Evaluating a Citizen-Led Public Campaign to Stimulate Empathy and Solidarity with 2,000 Victims of Enforced Disappearance in Acapulco, Mexico.” Trejo will be joined by political science doctoral students Laura López-Pérez and Mayra Ortiz-Ocaña, V-TJ Lab pre-doctoral student Jorge Ruiz Reyez, Natán Skigin, an assistant professor of comparative politics at the University of Georgia, and Jean Mendieta, a policy practitioner in the V-TJ Lab.

• Michael Coppedge, a professor of political science and a faculty fellow in the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, will lead a project called “Developing the Public Portal Prototype for AI-based Modeling of Democratic Development and Decline (AIM-3D Portal).” Coppedge will be joined by co-principal investigators Valentina (Valya) Kuskova, a professor and associate director at the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society; John Behrens, a professor of the practice, director of the Technology and Digital Studies Program, and director of digital strategy for the College of Arts & Letters; Dmitry Zaytsev, an associate professor of the practice at the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society; and Richard (Rick) Johnson, an associate professor of the practice and the managing director of the Applied Analytics and Emerging Technology Lab (AETL) at the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society.

Convening

• The Student Policy Network Team, led by Kaeleigh Picco, director of engagement for the Student Policy Network, and co-presidents of the Student Policy Network Alex Young and Sonia Zhang, will create a pilot Showcase in Washington, D.C.. The convening which will become an annual program designed to highlight Notre Dame students’ contributions to democratic engagement and public policy.

• Andres Mejia Acosta, the Kuster Family Associate Dean for Policy and Practice and an associate professor in the political economy of development, will lead an investigation into the strategic weakening of the administrative state itself in partnership with a workshop convening scholars and practitioners of the topic. Acosta will be joined by co-principal investigators Javier Perez Sandoval, a Kellogg postdoctoral research assistant in democracy, Derek Mitchell, a visiting professor of the practice in the Keough School of Global Affairs, and Andrea Perilla, a masters of global affairs student in governance and policy in the Keough School.

• The Ansari Institute team, which includes Scott Appleby, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Global Affairs and interim director of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion; teaching professor Mahan Mirza, executive director of the Ansari Institute; Alexander Hsu, assistant teaching professor of global affairs; and Rose Luminiello, assistant teaching professor in the Keough School, will hold a Global Fellows Program symposium in Rome in June 2026.

• James Curry, a professor of political science, Jeff Harden, the Andrew J. McKenna Family College Professor; and Rachel Porter, the Notre Dame du Lac Assistant Professor of Political Science, will host the first of annual one-day convenings to bring top scholars to Notre Dame, called “Chambers of Democracy: Annual Convenings on Legislatures as Central Institutions in American Democracy.”

• Horane Diatta-Holgate, an assistant teaching professor and the program director for faculty development, and Kristi Rudenga, director of the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, will lead a series of instructor training and networking sessions called “Teaching and Learning for Democracy Series: Structuring Classrooms for Effective Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Polarizing Times.”

• Peter Quaranto, a visiting professor of the practice, Maura Policelli, executive director of the Keough School’s Washington Office and professor of the practice; and Derek Mitchell, a visiting distinguished professor of the practice at the Keough School's Washington Office, will convene a cross-section of experts and practitioners to consider ways to better integrate peacebuilding approaches and tools with ongoing efforts to strengthen democracy in the United States and globally.

Education and Formation

• Patrick Deneen, a professor of political science, will develop new undergraduate and graduate courses called Democratic Theory: Pre-liberal, Liberal, Anti-liberal, and Postliberal.”

Originally published by Emily Monacelli Guzman at strategicframework.nd.edu on December 15, 2025.