The Open Politics Project
or "Open Source Political Intelligence: what is it? And why does it matter?"
The Question
“What is even happening right now?”
It’s a question many of us ask as we navigate today’s political landscape. News cycles shift rapidly, narratives are constructed and reconstructed, and the framing of issues influences public perception as much as the facts themselves.
Our approach begins with a rephrased version of this essential question:
“How can we gather, measure, classify, review, and analyze political developments with accuracy and transparency?”
The Need for Open, Reliable Tools
Recent events have made it clear that democratic societies depend on access to reliable and transparent information. Yet, navigating the complexity of political landscapes—understanding key players, their motives, and the subtle (or not-so-subtle) ways narratives are shaped—remains a challenge.
From emotionally charged headlines to the topics that go unmentioned, the modern information ecosystem is designed to capture attention. Social media platforms and traditional news outlets, though different in form, operate under the same fundamental rule: attention is the most valuable currency.
So we ask:
“Who wants your attention where, and why?”
The Information Maze
Answering this question isn’t easy. There are countless sources, actors, and interests shaping the discourse. For those who actively read and compare news, patterns start to emerge—but at scale, tracking these influences requires specialized tools.
While intelligence agencies, corporate consultancies, and think tanks have long had access to such tools, the public largely lacks them. Our mission is to change that—by building open, transparent, and customizable tools for anyone who wants to analyze political information at scale.
Our Vision
We envision a world where activists, journalists, researchers, and engaged citizens can access cutting-edge political analysis tools—helping to drive greater transparency and accountability in governance.
Building the Toolkit
Information is power, especially in politics. But the ability to gather and interpret political data has historically been limited to well-resourced institutions. It’s time to break that monopoly.
Thanks to open-source communities, many advanced data analysis techniques are already available. Some are even packaged into state-of-the-art AI models. Our goal is to harness these capabilities and make them accessible to everyone.
Thats why we often talk about "operationalising" tools. While extracting entities, geocoding locations, using LLMs and Embeddings are all part of the process and already publiclcy available, the real challenge to build a coherent toolkit that makes capabilities accessible to the public.
Data + UI + Research
Raw data alone is meaningless without the right interface to explore it. Different users have different needs: while one person might prefer a podcast, another might find an interactive map or real-time dashboard more insightful.
That’s why user experience and interactive research are at the core of our work. Our next milestone? Releasing the first version of our geospatial visualization (Globe UI) and search modules—free for anyone to use on our platform. Stay tuned for a preview.
Pushing the Boundaries
Beyond building tools, we’re committed to researching and refining new methodologies. Every approach we develop will be documented, peer-reviewed, and open for scrutiny.
Look for us at APSA 2024 (Philadelphia) and PEIO 2025 (Harvard), where we’ll be sharing our latest work on algorithmic classification and political analysis. By making our methodologies fully transparent, we invite feedback, collaboration, and improvement from a broad community of experts and users alike.
We will lay out more about our research and methodologies here very soon!
Join us
By combining political science, data analysis, and AI, we aim to create an independent, open infrastructure that fosters informed, critical, and nuanced decision-making.
Whether you’re a journalist, activist, researcher, NGO staffer, policymaker, or developer—if you seek deeper insights into political realities, this is for you.
Check it out—and if you believe in this vision, join us in building what we call Open Source Political Intelligence.
Get in Touch
We welcome your input and questions!
Fastest way to reach us: Mail us
Links
Email: engage@open-politics.org
Founder: Jim Vincent Wagner
LinkedIn: Open Politics LinkedIn
GitHub: Open Politics GitHub
Mastodon/Bluesky/Fediverse: @openpoliticsproject