Policy Briefs on Global Challenges to Democracy

This report assesses democratic degradation in the United States as President Trump's second term marks its first anniversary and proposes a framework for recovery grounded in the sequencing logic of post-conflict peacebuilding. Because established frameworks for re-democratisation in advanced democracies remain underdeveloped, the report adapts insights from a field that has systematically addressed phased institutional reconstruction under conditions of contested authority and diminished public trust. The purpose is to address a shared problem: how to rebuild legitimate institutions when authority is disputed and confidence in governance is profoundly eroded. The result is a three-phase roadmap: preparation under constraint, action during transition windows, and long-term civic renewal. The framework may offer insights for other democracies facing institutional erosion.

This report examines the case of India, where the balance between labour and capital has moved decisively against labour, breaking the back of one of the most potent forces of democratisation. Countries where workers’ unions are hit the hardest by neoliberalism tend to offer the right-wing movements the most fertile ground. India’s broken democracy now points to the emergence of authoritarian neoliberalism—a form of capitalism in which the state joins forces with capital and erodes labour power to fortify despotic rule.

This policy brief examines four interconnected threats to electoral integrity: the dismantling of US federal election security infrastructure, the Department of Justice campaign to obtain state voter files, the erosion of redistricting norms through mid-decade partisan gerrymandering, and the appointment of election deniers to key US federal positions. With the 2026 United States midterm elections occurring under conditions of unprecedented US federal intervention in electoral administration, the analysis finds that the constitutional assignment of election administration to state and local governments—the ‘federalism firewall’—remains the primary constraint on federal overreach, though it is under sustained pressure. The brief concludes with policy recommendations for strengthening interstate cooperation, protecting election personnel, and preserving procedural accountability.

This policy brief poses the question: which human capacities does digital polarisation erode, and why does their erosion matter for democratic life? It references a comprehensive governance architecture developed by Toda Peace Institute, Lisa Schirch’s 'Blueprint for Prosocial Tech Design Governance and Social Media Impacts on Conflict and Democracy', which addresses the dynamics of digital polarisation threatening democratic governance and establishes policy frameworks, regulatory mechanisms, and design interventions for constraining platform harms. Drawing on Simone Weil’s analysis of attention, affliction, and uprootedness, the brief offers a theory of democratic capacity that clarifies what platform governance must protect and concludes with four policy actions that ground platform accountability in the democratic capacities it must preserve

This report discusses the important lessons that the New York mayor-elect’s campaign masterclass has for India’s flailing democracy, particularly its ineffectual opposition parties that have failed to mount any meaningful pushback against Modi’s monopoly over power in more than a decade. Indian-born Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech laced with quotes of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Bollywood music has added to the buzz, but his desi connection is not the only reason why Mamdani resonates across three oceans.