About
Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Nitsche is a computer scientist, board member of the Association for Interactive Democracy, and co-founder of the LiquidFeedback project. His work focuses on democratic self-organization and the design of large-scale deliberation and decision-making processes.
He works at the intersection of technology, political theory, and computational social choice, with particular interests in liquid democracy, democratic representation, algorithmic mechanisms for deliberation and collective decision making, social cohesion, inclusion, and conflict management.
Nitsche has presented and discussed his work at universities, research institutions, government bodies, and international conferences in Europe and the United States. In 2022, he was a Thomas Mann Fellow in Los Angeles, where his work addressed interactive democracy and social cohesion in polarized societies.
Research interests
Democratic self-organization and liquid democracy; computational social choice; large-scale deliberation and collective decision making; representation and delegation; algorithmic process design; social cohesion, inclusion, and conflict management; opportunities and risks of technology for democracy.
Publications
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Davide Grossi, Andreas Nitsche, Georgios Papasotiropoulos, Oskar Skibski, Piotr Skowron, and Tomasz Wąs (2026).
Power in Liquid Democracy: A Network Centrality Approach.
arXiv.
DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2608.13188.
[Publication page]
[Paper on arXiv]
[News]
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Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2025).
How Aggregation Functions in Mass-Deliberation Systems Can Incentivize Extremes: A Hypothesis on Strategy-Induced Opinion Polarization.
Prepublication.
[Prepublication]
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Davide Grossi and Andreas Nitsche (2025).
Delegations as Adaptive Representation Patterns: Rethinking Influence in Liquid Democracy.
arXiv.
DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2506.09789.
[Paper on arXiv]
[News]
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Davide Grossi, Ulrike Hahn, Michael Mäs, Andreas Nitsche, Jan Behrens, Niclas Boehmer, Markus Brill, Ulle Endriss, Umberto Grandi, Adrian Haret, Jobst Heitzig, Nicolien Janssens, Catholijn M. Jonker, Marijn A. Keijzer, Axel Kistner, Martin Lackner, Alexandra Lieben, Anna Mikhaylovskaya, Pradeep K. Murukannaiah, Carlo Proietti, Manon Revel, Élise Rouméas, Ehud Shapiro, Gogulapati Sreedurga, Björn Swierczek, Nimrod Talmon, Paolo Turrini, Zoi Terzopoulou, and Frederik Van De Putte (2024).
Enabling the Digital Democratic Revival: A Research Program for Digital Democracy.
arXiv.
DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2401.16863.
[Paper on arXiv]
[News]
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Ulrike Hahn, Michael Mäs, and Andreas Nitsche (2023).
Innovations in Equity: Contextualizing U.S. and International Perspectives | Germany and Europe.
Transcript of contributions to National Coalition for Equity Impact Summit #2.
[Transcript]
[News]
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Andreas Nitsche (2022).
Crossing the Pond: Interactive Democracy and Social Cohesion in a Polarized Society.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 7.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Andreas Nitsche (2022).
Algorithms for Good.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 7.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2022).
Implementation Issues of Collective Decision Systems in Practice.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 7.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2022).
The Temporal Dimension in the Analysis of Liquid Democracy Delegation Graphs.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 7.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
[News]
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Martin Kaplan and Andreas Nitsche (2022).
Communicating Across Political Fault Lines – Reaching the 'Unreachable'.
Video conversation, Thomas Mann House, Los Angeles.
[Video]
[Reproduction in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Thomas Mann House (2022).
An Interview with 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow Andreas Nitsche.
Video interview.
[Interview]
[Reproduction in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Andreas Nitsche (2021).
Liquid Democracy—A Transatlantic Affair.
Film, Thomas Mann House, Los Angeles.
[Film]
[Reproduction in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Andreas Nitsche (2018).
Roadmap to a Decentralized LiquidFeedback.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 6.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2018).
The LiquidFeedback Blockchain.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 6.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Jan Behrens, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2018).
Decentralized Accreditation.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 6.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Guido Boella, Louise Francis, Elena Grassi, Axel Kistner, Andreas Nitsche, Alexey Noskov, Luigi Sanasi, Adriano Savoca, Claudio Schifanella, and Ioannis Tsampoulatidis (2018).
WeGovNow: A Map Based Platform to Engage the Local Civic Society.
Companion of The Web Conference 2018, pp. 1215–1219.
DOI: 10.1145/3184558.3191560.
[Paper at ACM Digital Library]
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Jan Behrens, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2017).
LiquidFeedback's Issue Limiter.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 5.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Andreas Nitsche (2017).
Warum Liquid Democracy keine Alternative zur parlamentarischen Republik ist.
vorwärts.
[Article in vorwärts]
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Jan Behrens, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2015).
A Finite Discourse Space for an Infinite Number Of Participants.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 4.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Andreas Nitsche (2014).
Liquid Democracy Provides No Alternative to the Republic.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 2.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Andreas Nitsche (2014).
Liquid Democracy - what all the noise is about.
The Liquid Democracy Journal, Issue 1.
[Article in The Liquid Democracy Journal]
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Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner, Andreas Nitsche, and Björn Swierczek (2014).
The Principles of LiquidFeedback.
Interaktive Demokratie e. V., Berlin.
ISBN 978-3-00-044795-2.
[Book website]
Events
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2026
“Liquid Democracy and the Challenge of Inclusiveness” and Roundtable on Digital Democracy Tools
Bucharest Workshop on Digital Democracy and Inclusivity, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania.
[News]
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2026
“Algorithms and Process Design” and “Network Plasticity in Liquid Democracy”
Deep Dives at the 2nd Digital Democracy Camp, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany
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2025
“Transitive Influence and Network Plasticity in Liquid Democracy”
Digital Democracy The Hague 2025 conference, The Hague, The Netherlands.
[News]
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2025
“Delegations as Adaptive Representation Patterns: Transitive Influence and Pathway Plasticity in Liquid Democracy”
PERYCLES Symposium “Is there hope for deliberative democracy yet?”, 21st Annual Conference of the Italian Association for Cognitive Science, Connected Minds – Dynamic Interactions in Cognitive, Social, and Artificial Systems, Lucca, Italy.
[News]
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2025
“Artificial Intelligence: Opportunity or Threat to Democracies”
Panel at the German Federal Foreign Office, Berlin, Germany.
[News]
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2025
“Shaping Democracy: Strategies That Make an Impact”
Innovationsforum 2025 WHAT WORKS!, Hertie School, Berlin, Germany.
[News]
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2025
“Rethinking Influence in Liquid Democracy”
European Network for Digital Democracy, Centre d’Économie de la Sorbonne, Paris, France.
[News]
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2023
“Developing Green and Smart Infrastructure Solutions”
RAND Corporation, Consulates General of Finland and Germany, Los Angeles, California.
[News]
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2023
“Innovations In Equity: Contextualizing U.S. and International Perspectives”
Interaktive Demokratie, German Consulate General, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California.
[News]
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2022
“Algorithmic Technology for Democracy”
Lorentz Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
[News]
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2022
“LiquidFeedback: Algorithms for Fair Opinion Formation”
University of California, Los Angeles
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2021
“Liquid Democracy, Algorithms, and the Temporal Dimension”
Mechanism Design for Social Good, Carnegie Mellon University and Harvard University
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2021
“Deliberation across political fault lines, bottom-up approaches, and the role of the regions”
Berlin Conference 2021: Europe Bottom-Up!, Berlin, Germany.
[News]
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2020
“Implementing online deliberative methods of engagement”
International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN), Centre for Democratic Engagement and UK House of Commons.
[News]
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2019
“Mathematics for Social Activism”
University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
[News]
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2019
“Internet Deliberation and Voting” (2)
Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
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2017
“Internet Deliberation and Voting” (1)
Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
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2017
“Digital Democracy”
King's College London, United Kingdom.
[News]
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2016
“The Future of Democracy”
University of Bologna, Italy.
[News]
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2016
“A fair process of decision making”
University of Toulouse, France.
[News]
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2015
“Conectados por la Paz”
Bogotá, Colombia, with the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (OACP) of the Colombian government.
[News]
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2014
“Technology & Strengthening Democracy”
Islamabad, Pakistan, with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York.
[News]
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2013
“Political Parties and the Citizens”
Yangon, Myanmar, with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), Stockholm.
[News]
Contact
andreas.nitsche@interaktive-demokratie.org
+49 (30) 5770 0482 | Berlin
+1 (323) 205 - 5543 | Los Angeles
