McGuinness Institute
The McGuinness Institute is a non-partisan think tank that applies "hindsight, insight, and foresight" to New Zealand's long-term governance challenges. Its distinctive contribution to the democracy landscape is a focus on institutional design and strategic foresight — not the mechanics of elections or the practice of deliberation, but the architecture of the governance systems themselves: how government departments set strategy, how political agreements are structured, how royal commissions and public inquiries function, and how civic education prepares citizens for democratic participation.
Project CivicsNZ is the Institute's flagship democratic-governance programme — documenting political agreements, tracking government department strategies (the Government Department Strategies Index), and publishing think pieces on institutional design. The Institute also runs Treaty of Waitangi-related governance work, foresight training, and publishes regular analysis. A newsletter was active as of August 2026.
The McGuinness Institute occupies a different space from the deliberative practitioners and civic-tech organisations in the Democracy Landscape. It is closer to the institutional-design tradition of organisations like newDemocracy (Australia) or Involve (UK) — focusing on the rules, structures, and long-term thinking that make democratic governance durable — but with a distinctive foresight methodology.
Links
- Website: mcguinnessinstitute.org