Policy Briefs on Global Challenges to Democracy

This Policy Brief analyses how the global landscape has shifted from post-Cold War optimism to current fragmentation, requiring changes in the approach of the United Nations to sustaining peace. It examines the priorities and limitations of the proposed New Agenda for Peace, while analysing issues like sovereignty, development, and enhanced UN integration. This Policy Brief offers concrete, practical recommendations to translate the ambitious sustaining peace vision into reality through continued reforms, recommitment to multilateral solidarity and collaboration, and the political courage to upgrade UN mechanisms for peace.

This Policy Brief explores the concept of resilience which has risen to become a key concept in science and society. As a scientific concept, resilience is, on the one hand, an analytical category that seeks to grasp empirically "what is" (what resilience potential does a particular democratic system have?) and, on the other hand, postulates normatively "what should be" (how is a desirable resilient democracy to be established?). This Policy Brief wants to transform the simple use of the term “democratic resilience” into an analytical concept which allows us to explore the state of resilience of real existing democracies and to discuss the methods, instruments, and ways to strengthen it in times of multiple challenges

This Policy Brief charts the history of the parliament of representatives, born more than eight centuries ago in northern Spain. This new instrument of government was among the most precious gifts to the world of modern representative democracy. Parliaments narrowly survived the chaos, war, class conflicts, dictatorships and totalitarianisms of the early decades of the 20th century. Their survival was remarkable, yet there are today signs that the post-1945 renaissance of parliaments is losing momentum. However smart, activist parliaments are on the rise. These legislatures are functioning as watchdog parliaments and their spirit is the grit humans are going to need as we struggle to deal wisely, equitably, democratically with the rich opportunities and cascading dangers of our troubled century.

This Policy Brief considers the case of India, which is instructive in understanding how a state-oriented world organisation can fuel geopolitical competition, impede the goal of achieving substantive democracy, and facilitate the rise of neo-authoritarians. Over the course of the last century, important voices from around the world warned of the destructive potential of nationalism and the way nation states were being constituted. They contemplated a wholly different way of organising the world system. The prescience of their concerns is painfully evident today as we witness the world hurtling down the path of illiberalism, climate calamity, and endless wars, with global bodies seemingly helpless in moderating the capitalist imperative of growth, the rise of populist demagogues, or ruinous interstate competition.

This policy brief examines contemporary challenges to the legitimate state monopoly on the use of force and its possible future. The rule of law is being undermined and attacked and the state monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force is almost universally at risk. What are the values and the shortcomings of a legitimate state monopoly on the use of physical force? What does the concept in its ideal form mean and why are these principles questioned and challenged?