Policy Briefs on Global Challenges to Democracy

This report examines the current rivalries between the USA and China—two entangled but differently structured empires—which are triggering mental confusions, public anxieties and political misunderstandings and fears. Getting the measure of these world-shaping dynamics should be a priority for every thinking person, but the task is hampered by much bluff and bluster, propaganda and disinformation on both sides. Confronted by Russian-style despotisms, a rising Chinese empire and an angry America bearishly in retreat and decline, democrats everywhere might realise that this is a moment of opportunity not to be wasted, a tipping point in which the future of democracy no longer depends on the approval and support of the United States. Post-imperial democracy will instead depend upon the solidarity of the shaken..

This report identifies emerging dynamics and key challenges for both peacemaking and political transition after the downfall of dictator Bashar Assad's in Syria in Dember 2024. Events have unfolded against a backdrop of a region reeling from a 15-month long genocide in Gaza, a war and tenuous ceasefire in Lebanon and a new US administration under Donald Trump who maintains close ties with Gulf leaders. The report begins by mapping out the key actors and the latest political and security developments in the roughly three months since Assad’s fall. It then moves to identifying extant issues necessary for the country’s move out of war and into the uncertain terrain of political transition. It concludes with policy recommendations for Syrian civil society and political as well as regional and international actors.

In this interview, John Keane argues that the public beautification of war is among the oddest features of the terrible meta wars of our century. With the help of communications media, war becomes an elaborately staged, picturesque tableau designed to transfix audiences and wall them off from war’s horrors. Savagery and ghastliness are no more. War becomes bloodless. It undergoes a form of beautification more subtle and more insidious than ever happened in the era of radio, film, and television. However, a new type of rebel journalism does something that is powerfully different. It does more than problematize meta wars by chipping away at their beautification. The new rebel journalism keeps alive and nurtures political hopes for an end to war.

This policy brief examines the divisive, hyper-polarized, us-or-them way politics is viewed in the United States. One test of a democracy is whether or not the voters get to choose their leaders. While, at this most basic level, the 2024 US presidential election was a success, it's easy to understand why both sides view contemporary politics as a battle that they absolutely, positively, must win. The only way out of this highly destructive confrontation is some kind of compromise that, more than elections, is the cornerstone of the democratic ideal. This policy brief concludes with three principles upon which such a compromise could be built.

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.