What the programs do

OI measures the opposition’s strength and teaches parties to build it. The aim is the contest itself: an opposition strong enough that a government stays accountable and the next election stays open. The programs are open to any opposition that keeps to constitutional politics — left, right, or centre. OI leaves the politics to the party.

The instruments

OI measures the strength of the opposition and keeps the score in the open. The Opposition Performance Index is live: it splits the political space a party holds from the organizational depth it has built. The Opposition Resilience Index, now being built, asks whether that strength can survive pressure. The work is free, and the findings are public.

Counsel to parties

An opposition party can come to OI for its own read: where its organization is thin, and what it could do about it. The counsel is comparative and draws on the measures and on how other oppositions have met the same problem. It is free. It is not campaign help — OI runs no campaigns, makes no ads, and keeps no party as a standing client. A party that wins office steps back, and resumes if it returns to opposition. OI builds the capacity and lets the party go.

Doctrine

The structural questions — electoral rules, the right to information, party finance, coalition arithmetic, communications discipline — OI publishes free, as doctrine, for every opposition at once. OI teaches; the party acts. It names what an opposition could do, and the party decides what it will.

The Survey

Once a year OI runs the International Survey on the State of Political Opposition: a single, comparable read on how opposition fares across democracies. It is the flagship, and it is free to read.