Laura Thornton Email and Phone Number

Laura Thornton is senior vice president of the Democracy Hub at the German Marshall Fund. With offices in D.C., Brussels, Berlin, Bucharest, and Belgrade, the Hub’s mission is to defend and promote democracy. Through the Alliance for Securing Democracy, GMF tracks, analyzes, and builds strategies to thwart malign influence operations, both external and internal, targeting democracies across the globe. This includes teams focused on information operations, finance, elections, democracy-affirming emerging technology, and economic coercion. Through the Transatlantic Trusts, GMF supports civil society organizations and actors in Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, Black Sea and Eurasia region, Belarus, and Ukraine that are bolstering democratic resilience through civic education, media literacy, public awareness campaigns, and media and watchdog activities. Thornton also leads GMF’s global democracy initiatives to build communities of practices, share lessons, and forge alliances across borders, serving in numerous democracy networks and working groups as a leader and expert in the democracy community.Prior to joining GMF, Thornton was director of global programmes at International IDEA, a Stockholm-based intergovernmental think and do tank with the mission to advance democracy. She led multiple teams across Europe focused on constitution-building, parliamentary processes, elections, gender and inclusion, political parties, and democracy assessment and analysis. In this role she managed the development of global comparative knowledge and applied research products aimed at supporting and advancing democracy worldwide, including the Global State of Democracy report and the Global Monitor on COVID-19 impact on human rights and democracy. Thornton also served in leadership positions at the National Democratic Institute for more than 20 years, working across Asia (Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka) and in Georgia (country). She has written extensively about political party development, political finance and corruption, elections, and disinformation, and has led multiple election observation missions across the globe. At NDI, Thornton designed numerous public opinion research efforts, including national polls, focus groups, and experimental research designs concentrated on disinformation, security, geopolitics, democracy and human rights, and political developments. She co-authored the book Political Parties in Asia: Promoting Reform and Combating Corruption in Eight Countries (NDI, 2003).