Policy Briefs on Global Challenges to Democracy

This report introduces “massively parallel problem solving and democracy building”, the notion that the “solution” to failing democracy comes in the form of hundreds of thousands of different people and organizations, each working on their own little “thing,” which together add up to a massive societal response to all the various challenges democracy faces. Scholars, conflict resolution practitioners, politicians, and grassroots citizens all seem to agree: democracy is in trouble in many places around the world including the U.S. which is the focus of this report. However, the forces of resilience and adaptive change are here in more abundance than is often recognized. Rather than being a hypothetical theoretical idea, massively parallel problem solving is already happening on the ground – on a surprisingly large scale.

This Policy Brief draws attention to thousands of civil society organizations which have died in the attack launched by India’s right-wing government that sees them as an internal threat to the state. The fate of many more, like India’s tottering democracy itself, hangs on the result of the ongoing election.

This Policy Brief addresses the question: How can right-wing populism be electorally reversed, and is democracy automatically restored when it is? A southern state in Modi’s India has important lessons as the world’s biggest election plays out.

This Policy Brief examines the rise to power of Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim – a story of political perseverance and hope with few parallels – and how he has fared in handling the Southeast Asian country's many challenges in his first year in office. A rare intellectual-politician, his career has careened from street protests to the centre of power, back to street protests, incarceration, custodial torture, repression, then slow progression back to high politics, and eventually the apex of political power. Becoming the fifth prime minister in as many years in 2022, stability has been his priority, complicating his dual task of revving up the economy and battling the ever-lengthening shadow of Islamist conservatism over Malaysia. Anwar’s report card after a year is hence a mixed bag of some hits and many misses amid abounding constraints.

This Policy Brief examines the relationship between the Indian government and India’s mainstream national-level media. When we think of the global epidemic of media capture, we usually think of intimidation and coercion by neo-authoritarians to gain control over the narrative. India shows how media can also be co-opted through financial inducements, and how institutional norms internal to the media industry are instrumental in this wilful capitulation rather than the fear of the demagogue. This highly evolved model of media control is far more effective in that it not only makes the media fall in line but turns it into an enthusiastic cheerleader of the government, as India’s once vibrant and now dismal media landscape shows.