Civic Tech Field Guide
Sharing knowledge and productively growing the fieldThe People > Learn about civic tech > Books - (60)
A list of books exploring different issues like how civic tech can be used to meet challenges in the cities, how to increase democratic participation, or what are the best ways to combat ethical concerns.
Showing 60 Results
The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley
United States of America (the)An insider offers a “forceful critique...of Big Tech's steady erosion of democracy” (The New Yorker) and describes what must be done to stop it
By Alan R. Shark, with ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity AI
The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy
Civic Tech Report 2025
Prague, CzechiaHardcover book and online platform providing an overview of over 80 solutions from the European civic tech ecosystem
By Aure Schrock. Out in September. The first detailed history of Code for America that examines how democratically designed government systems can collectively improve technology's impact on society.
From the upheavals of recent national elections to the success of the #MyDressMyChoice feminist movement, digital platforms have already had a dramatic impact on political life in Kenya – one of the most electronically advanced countries in Africa.
Mehr Freiheit und mehr Demokratie waren die großen Versprechen des Internets.
Editors: Hans Jochen Scholl, Eric E. Holdeman, F. Kees Boersma
Wir holen euch ab! Wie wir durch Bürgerräte und Zufallsauswahl echte Vielfalt in die Demokratie bringen
Germany (Deutschland)Dabei haben sich Katharina Liesenberg und Linus Strothmann vom Team Es geht LOS einer jahrtausendealten, urdemokratischen Methode bedient: des Losens
How political parties have changed in the age of social media
What Makes an Assembly? Stories, Experiments, and Inquiries
Belgium (België / Belgique / Belgien)Weaving together the anthropological, aesthetic, and political aspects of assembly-making, What Makes An Assembly? explores the potential of assemblies to reimagine the way democracy is practised in contemporary societies.
Did you know hundreds of scientists have researched what makes activism effective?
Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
United States of America (the)A bold call to reexamine how our government operates—and sometimes fails to—from President Obama's former deputy chief technology officer and the founder of Code for America.
This book analyzes how mainstream and new parties are building their digital platforms and transitioning from traditional (offline) organizations into the digital world
"From the historian Dan Bouk, a lesson in reading between the lines of the U.S. census to uncover the stories behind the data."
In this groundbreaking work, Haochen Sun analyzes the ethical crisis unfolding at the intersection of technology and the public interest.
"Reclaiming Participatory Governance offers empirical and theoretical perspectives on how the relationship between social movements and state institutions is emerging and developing through new modes of participatory governance."
Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy is the first book that brings together a wide range of methods used in the study of deliberative democracy.
Deliberative Democracy in Asia
China (Zhong Guo)Book edited By Baogang He, Michael Breen, James Fishkin (2021)
The Wildcard Workbook
758 8th Ave Suite 300, New York, NY 10036The Wildcard Workbook: A Practical Guide for Jokering Forum Theatre is a resource for facilitators of all kinds looking for new ways to bring fun, creativity, and critical thinking into their work!
Hack Your Bureaucracy: Get Things Done No Matter What Your Role on Any Team
United States of America (the)In this "deeply empowering and practical book"(Cecilia Muñoz), two technology and innovation leaders reveal dozens of tactics that enabled them to accomplish seemingly impossible reforms in organizations of all types and sizes
The Turing Way: Community-led guides for data science and open research
The Alan Turing Institute, Euston Road, London, UKAlan Turing has long proved a subject of fascination, but following the centenary of his birth in 2012, the code-breaker, computer pioneer, mathematician (and much more) has become even more celebrated with much media coverage, and several meetings, conferences and books raising public awareness of Turing's life and work.
Sobrevivendo nas Redes: Guia do Cidadão
Brazil (Brasil)A free book on how to survive on social media networks
The Propagandists' Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy
United States of America (the)How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy, by Francesca Bolla Tripodi
Reorganise: 15 stories of workers fighting back in a digital age
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)"In only a decade, the labour market has changed beyond all recognition - from zero-hour contracts to platform monopolies - meanwhile union memberships are at historic lows."
A collection of essays edited by Ana Brandusescu and Jess Reia featuring essays from participants of the AI in the City: Building Civic Engagement and Public Trust symposium that took place remotely on February 10, 2022.
Book by Sarah Williams -- How to use data as a tool for empowerment rather than oppression.
A revealing look at how user behavior is powering deep social divisions online—and how we might yet defeat political tribalism on social media
The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service into Volunteer Involvement
Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement
The hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from natural resources and labor to privacy and freedom
"US governments struggle to keep pace with rapidly advancing technologies and with the expectations of the public for governmental service delivery akin to what they experience in other aspects of their normal daily lives."
How to take advantage of technology, data, and the collective wisdom in our communities to design powerful solutions to contemporary problems
In Close Up at a Distance, Laura Kurgan offers a theoretical account of these new digital technologies of location and a series of practical experiments in making maps and images with spatial data.
This book takes a close look at civic apps and general-purpose tech platforms and services.
A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance (Brookings / Ash Center Series, Innovative Governance in the 21st Century)
By Christopher Whitaker Edited by Daniel X. O'Neill
A bold reassessment of "smart cities" that reveals what is lost when we conceive of our urban spaces as computers, by Shannon Mattern
A free e-book covering common patterns in open project governance
Julien Carbonnell's thesis, featuring case studies in Taiwan, Israel, and Estonia
The United Nations, Australia Post, and governments in the UK, Finland, Taiwan, France, Brazil, and Israel are just a few of the organizations and groups utilizing design to drive social change.
From a cutting-edge cultural commentator, a bold and brilliant challenge to cherished notions of the Internet as the great leveler of our age The Internet has been hailed as an unprecedented democratizing force
Get unprecedented access to thousands of databases. It's called Open Data, and it's revolutionizing business.
The book looks at organizing models, civic tech, governance, citizen engagement and how to fund, staff, and train the next generation of leaders to revitalize democracy.
Opening the Government of Canada
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CanadaThe Federal Bureaucracy in the Digital Age. By Amanda Clarke
Guides, case studies and resources for government & civil society on the "what, why & how" of open data.
A rallying cry for revolutionizing democracy in the digital age, Citizenville reveals how ordinary Americans can reshape their government for the better.
Edited by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider: Ours to Hack and to Own, the rise of platform cooperativism, a new vision for the future of work and a fairer Internet.
Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens.
The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter
Get email updates
Helpful Links
Reach Out
A project of
With support from
National Endowment for Democracy
Founding Organization
Civic Hall
Technology partner
Civic Tech Field Guide