European Endowment for Democracy (EED)’s Post

Today, democracy faces an array of grave challenges, globally as well as within the EU’s own borders. EU institutions, custodians of the most successful multi-national project ever attempted to uphold the values of democracy, peace, sustainable development, and multilateralism, bear a historic responsibility at this critical juncture. Leaders and pro-democracy organizations from different countries and walks of life call upon the next EU leadership to consider these ten priorities to place democracy, at home and abroad, at the top of the policy agenda in the Union for the duration of their mandates and beyond. Law and Public Policy Center has joined this cause and signed the statement. 🔽

On 6-9 June 2024, European voters representing nearly 450 million European citizens will participate in the European Parliament elections. Today, democracy faces an array of grave challenges, globally as well as within the EU’s own borders. EU institutions, custodians of the most successful multi-national project ever attempted to uphold the values of democracy, peace, sustainable development, and multilateralism, bear a historic responsibility at this critical juncture. We call upon the next EU leadership to consider these ten priorities to place democracy, at home and abroad, at the top of the policy agenda in the Union for the duration of their mandates and beyond. The statement has been signed by more than 350 pro-democracy organizations, Nobel laureates and political and civil leaders, including former heads of state and government  and EU leaders. Join the cause and sign it too ! 🖋 ⬇ #democracy #EU #europeanelections #EUdefenddemocracy

📣 Today, democracy faces an array of grave challenges, globally as well as within the EU’s own borders. ✒️ More than 250 political and civil leaders, Nobel laureates and pro-democracy organisations from different countries and walks of life thus call upon the next EU leadership to consider 10 priorities to place democracy at the top of the policy agenda, at home and abroad. #EUDefendDemocracy - Join the cause and sign the statement ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/eBSnt4cK International IDEA ENoP - European Network of Political Foundations European Endowment for Democracy (EED) Open Government Partnership

Europe is needed to support, defend and reimagine democracy. As a global partnership, we recognize that democracy is not universally defined, but we must be ambitious and creative on how it delivers to citizens’ lives. Today, democracy faces an array of grave challenges, globally as well as within the EU’s own borders. Jointly with International IDEA, European Endowment for Democracy (EED), European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), and ENoP - European Network of Political Foundations and ahead of the #EUElections, we are launching an open letter calling on newly elected EU leaders to defend democracy with 10 policy priorities at home and abroad. We invite you to sign the statement and join more than 250 political, civil leaders, Nobel laureates & pro-democracy organizations united on this call. https://lnkd.in/eBSnt4cK #EUDefendDemocracy #EUelections #democracy #Europe

#Research💡 #Policy 💬 🔊 A call to defend democracy! As talks on the next #EU leadership pick up speed, EPD supports the call to revive democracy. Richard Youngs proposes policy ideas for EU democracy strategies in the upcoming institutional term. Read the policy brief on European Endowment for Democracy (EED) ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/dfA-_Gs4

Currently in Hague, Netherlands working on a Horizon Europe research proposal on novel approaches to encounter Democratic Backsliding. Democracy in Europe is in decline, even by the more conventional measure. When weighted by population, the trend is again much more apparent. By the latter measure, the level of democracy in Europe has fallen back forty years, to where it was in 1978. This decline is just as steep as the backslide seen in several other regions of the world. https://lnkd.in/ddx4vmKs

If you are interested in electoral volatility, the emergence of new political movements and EU politics, read the research I have published in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies on the responsiveness of the European mainstream parties to socio-economic transformations. The e-print of the article is (temporarily) available open-access by clicking the image below

In a new Fast Thinking piece, GCH Nonresident Fellow Wen-Ti Sung, Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) Senior Resident China Fellow Kenton Thibaut, and GeoEconomics Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Hung Tran explore the implications of Saturday’s presidential election in Taiwan – a presidential victory for the DPP’s Lai Ching-te and a divided legislature. What do these results mean for Taiwan’s relationships with the US and Beijing? Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/egnEJj2B  

I have a new article out in the Journal of Cold War Studies: "The Committee for the Free World and the Defense of Democracy". This one has been a long time coming. This article provides the first comprehensive examination of the U.S.-based advocacy group the Committee for the Free World. Founded by Midge Decter in 1981, the CFW constituted a key foreign policy branch of the neoconservative movement in the late Cold War. The article traces the motivations for the CFW's establishment, activities, position within the neoconservative movement, and relations with the Reagan administration. It offers new insights into the history of neoconservatism, anti-communism, democracy promotion, and Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. The CFW was launched simultaneously in New York and London with roughly 400 members from the US, the UK, Canada, West Germany, France, Italy, Israel, Argentina, and Australia. Its members hailed from the worlds of politics, journalism, art, academia, and think tanks. The group sought to make the defense of democracy a core component of U.S. foreign policy. To the CFW, this was mainly about the defense of Western democracies against communism rather than democracy promotion in authoritarian states. Announcing the CFW to the world, Decter stated: "We are persuaded that the struggle for freedom may in the end be won or lost not on battlefields but in books, newspapers, broadcasts, classrooms, and in all public institutions where the determination to remain free is enhanced or undermined." By tracing the CFW's vision for defending democracy, the article unearths a key intellectual lineage for the more active democracy promotion agenda that would become a key guiding principle for U.S. foreign policy in the post–Cold War world. The article is a product of my postdoc at Georgetown University funded by Carlsberg Foundation. I conducted most of the research at the wonderful archives at The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and presented a draft version at a SHAFR conference several years ago. Thanks to everyone involved! https://lnkd.in/dCVamUdG

📰 NEW PUBLICATION | #ParticipatoryDemocracy at the EU level: How to break the invisible ceiling? In their latest #EPCDiscussionPaper, Corina Stratulat and Janis Emmanouilidis argue it is necessary for the EU27 to confront the ongoing agglomeration of chronic and acute crises and highlight three mutually reinforcing structural impediments that need to be acknowledged and dealt with This paper is part of the EU Democracy Reform Observatory, a joint initiative by Bertelsmann Stiftung, the European Policy Centre, the King Baudouin Foundation, and Stiftung Mercator GmbH. Read the full paper 👇 https://lnkd.in/eNxwsZTp