Building Blocks for Democracy

Finding new ways to make democracies more resilient in a rapidly changing world

For several years now, grave concerns have been raised about the dangers faced by democracy in the emerging new world. 

During the 2021 Athens Democracy Forum, it became clear that there was a need to identify the specific ways in which democracy will need to evolve in order to meet these dangers. We need to move beyond the analysis of the dangers and provide specific answers on how to make democracy more resilient to the dangers of inequalities, climate change, digitalization, migration, health pandemics. 

This is no easy task. Democracy may rest on just two fundamental principles – human rights and the rule of law – but its workings are intricate, its institutions relatively feeble, people’s trust in it easily undermined. Democracy can quickly move in several directions: tyranny, populism, authoritarianism.

The Foundation's project on “Re-imagining the Building Blocks of Democracy” aims to start a global debate on how democracy ought to evolve. 
 

The project

This was a 4-year Democracy & Culture Foundation (DCF) project, carried out with a large group of partners and encompassing the Global North and the Global South. It aimed to come up with specific and practical policy recommendations regarding the functioning-operational parts (blocks) of democracy, that will make it better able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, as well as its own internal and external enemies. The project completed every year following a methodology initially delineated by a group of mainly academic advisers to DCF. Each year, all partners gathered in London to present and discuss the year’s activities and the results are then presented at that year’s Athens Democracy Forum (ADF), which also served as the launching pad for the following year’s activities.

The Building Blocks

After extensive discussion, it was decided to concentrate on policy proposals that concern the following functions of liberal democracy:

• The Power of the People - people and their interaction with democratic institutions
• The Power of Voting - voting, obstacles and absenteeism
• The Power of the Executive - the executive vs. the legislature and the desired balance thereof
• The Power of Parties - money & parties and their influence on policies
• The Power of Information - information and its impact on democracy
• The Power of Business - the business world and its role in democracy and combating inequality
• The Power of AI & Ethics - AI & the need for universal ethical standards

Learn more