We improve the health of American democracy by instituting reforms that align citizens’ interests with politicians’ incentives.
About Us
Article IV is strictly nonpartisan.
Our team includes Democrats, Republicans, and Independents with different political views but a common interest in defending American democracy. We are geographically distributed to provide support to local, state-led policy initiatives that share similar values.
What We Do
Research
We facilitate research to diagnose the causes of American democratic dysfunction and source evidence-supported policies that have the potential to improve democratic performance.
Advocacy
We provide hands-on support to local, state-led campaigns and policy initiatives to pass policies that inject healthy competition and give citizens more choice and agency in how their government is run.
Funding
Beyond tactical support, we provide grants to organizations leading efforts in their states to improve the health of American democracy.
Why We Do it
Our democracy was designed to align citizens' incentives with the people they elect. But systems that don’t adapt don’t survive.
Blaming individual politicians may be satisfying, but unless we change the incentive system that motivates their behavior, our politics will intensify our divisions instead of reconciling them. That is what we hope to change.
Incentives Matter.
The Problem:
Two-party competition has collapsed. Few general elections remain competitive.
As a result, closed, primary elections are often the only contests that matter.
When the only accountability mechanism for an elected official involves winning a plurality of the primary electorate, their behavior invariably changes.
The vast majority of lawmakers are incentivized to prioritize a fraction of the electorate that doesn’t reflect the general population. Incentives dictate outcomes. Politicians end up neglecting the overwhelming majority of their constituents, because, unfortunately, it’s electorally beneficial to do so.
The Solution:
Structural reforms are one important lever to changing this incentive structure.
The empirical evidence is clear: independent citizen redistricting commissions draw more fair and competitive maps than partisan lawmakers and committees. Politicians should not get to pick their voters.
Similarly, Top-4 and Top-5 nonpartisan primaries where everyone, regardless of party, can participate are better than the alternative.
First-past-the-post, winner-take-all voting systems routinely force voters to pick the lesser of two evils. Voters should have more choices, and candidates should be incentivized to form the broadest possible coalition instead of appealing to a narrow plurality of voters.
To advance these alternatives, Article IV works with allies across the entire political spectrum—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents—to build a government that is more representative and more accountable to citizens.
@2024 Article IV