Policy Brief and Reports
December 24, 2024
The US in 2024: An Election That Worked and a Democracy That Doesn’t
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…
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July 4, 2025
Democratic Resilience in the United States: Containing Trump’s Threat to Democracy?
This report provides a comparative perspective on two crucial questions. First, what are the possibilities that the United States might devolve into what political scientists have called a ‘competitive authoritarian regime’—one in which the façade…
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July 7, 2025
‘Trump-ed’ Democratic Ideals in Arab–US Relations: ‘Democracy Promotion in Reverse’?
This report discusses the rise of transactionalism in the Gulf states' relations with the US, which is set not only to sideline democratic principles, norms, and institutions within Gulf polities, but also within the wider…
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July 11, 2025
America’s Retreat and the Future of Economic Multilateralism
This policy brief discusses the systematic retreat of the United States from multilateral institutions which threatens global economic reform, coinciding with China's construction of alternative frameworks and rising great-power bilateralism. This leads to a growing…
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July 14, 2025
Democracy in the 21st Century: Fragility and Resilience
This report summarizes the key discussions and outcomes of the 2025 annual meeting of the Toda Peace Institute’s Global Challenges to Democracy Working Group, held in Geneva on 5–6 June in collaboration with the Centre…
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July 29, 2025
The Return of President Trump and Its Implications for South America
This report outlines the significant threat to democratic governance in Latin America posed by Trump’s renewed presidency. His attacks on the rule of law and alignment with authoritarian leaders have emboldened regional allies to weaken…
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August 4, 2025
The Sultanization of US Politics
This report examines the terminology applied to the second presidency of Donald Trump. It has been called ‘fascist’, a ‘descent into fascism’ or a ‘revolutionary government in the form of an imperial court’. The US…
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August 13, 2025
Is Trump Adding to the Backsliding of the ‘World’s Biggest Democracy’?
This report examines the consequences for India of a second Trump presidential term. With his steep tariffs and cheap insults, Trump has eroded a decades-old Indian public consensus of a pro-America policy and revived old…
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August 19, 2025
Casting a Long Shadow: Trump 2.0’s Impact on Aotearoa New Zealand
This report examines the alarm felt in Aotearoa New Zealand during the first seven months of the second Trump administration as an autocratic President has managed to undermine basic democratic values and institutions, show open…
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October 13, 2025
Weaponisation of Law: Assault on Democracy
This policy brief examines the growing instrumentalisation of legal and administrative mechanisms to target and suppress civil society organisations. Drawing on recent developments in the United States and global patterns of democratic backsliding, it explores…
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