Policy Briefs on Global Challenges to Democracy

This paper surveys the landscape of women’s inclusion in Arab politics since 2011 and to analyze the status of gender relations in Arab authoritarian domestic politics. It identifies three interrelated trends that have variously unfolded across the region: the general retreat in women’s bottom-up mobilization, a separation between women’s political leadership and the democratic question, and the increased insecurity of women in settings besieged by conflict. The paper concludes with some recommendations for local/regional civil society and international allies seeking to enhance Arab women’s substantive political inclusion and participation in zones of de-democratization and violent conflict.

Toda Peace Institute presents a report series, “An Eye on Arab De-democratization,” that seeks to capture the nature of democratic erosion in a MENA Arab cluster of nine countries plus one case study covering the gender question in relation to ‘democratization’. The Arab region (interchangeably Middle East and North Africa – MENA) has had a chequered history with democratization. Evidently, today, the trend is not one of democratic transition but rather one of ‘autocratization’, i.e. of democratic de-consolidation. The report series will be published over the next three weeks, beginning with this Introduction, the case studyon Arab women, and reports on Palestine and Morocco.

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.