Democracy in the 21st Century: Fragility and Resilience.

Democracy in the 21st Century: Fragility and Resilience

The Toda Peace Institute's Global Challenges to Democracy Working Group, comprised of democracy researchers, activists, and peacebuilders from around the world, held its annual meeting 5-6 June 2025, in Geneva, Switzerland.

The meeting was titled “Democracy in the 21st Century: Fragility and Resilience.” The Working Group’s newly formed research cluster presented papers on the impacts of Trump 2.0 on their regions of focus as well as examples of democratic resilience. A critical session explored what it might mean to re-imagine democracy to better meet 21^st century challenges.

There was also a presentation on changes to our web platform, the Democracy Lighthouse, on which over 300 democracy institutes from around the globe are currently listed. The platform is able to host variety of content and become a forum of exchange for those working to preserve democracy in the face of the world’s growing trend towards authoritarianism. We also updated progress on an interactive systems map that has been developed in partnership with the Lowy Institute and explores the core dynamics that contribute to the to the erosion of democracy.

The meeting was co-sponsored by the Centre on Conflict at the Geneva Graduate Institute, which is led by Dr. Keith Krause, Toda’s Senior Research Fellow for Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament.

A number of Policy Briefs and Reports have been published by members of the Working Group and can be found here.