Democracy Protection in the Global South(s) and North(s): Approaches, Effectiveness, and Challenges

Event Type
Expert Exchange Meeting

Location / Date
Berlin, 28.11.2024

German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)

The Protecting Democracy in times of Autocratization and Polarization project team at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) is hosting an expert exchange meeting on “Democracy Protection in the Global North(s) and Global South(s): Approaches, Effectiveness, and Challenges.” This event will be held in Berlin at the dbb Forum on November 28, 2024.

The novelty of this event lies in uniting the currently fragmented democracy promotion community, often divided between those focused on strengthening democracy domestically and those promoting democracy internationally. The goal is to ensure that the wealth of experiences, ideas, and insights are shared and capitalised on. In this sense, the expert meeting aims to be a starting point to foster sustainable knowledge exchange and networks in this field across actors and regions

The event comes at a crucial time when societies around the world are experiencing a decline of democracy that affects all regions including established democracies such as the USA. As a consequence, societies worldwide are grappling with the question of how to protect their democracies most effectively against undemocratic tendencies. For international efforts, there is a pressing need to rethink and adjust strategies: The traditional approach of international democracy promotion, which has predominantly focused on supporting ongoing democratization processes, must now rebalance itself and consider measures to prevent autocratization and protect democracy more systematically.

The expert exchange meeting will bring together practitioners, policymakers, activists, and scholars working on democracy support and protection in the Global North and Global South to jointly discuss three main questions:

• What are the main challenges for democracy in different parts of the world?
• What are currently the most prominent strategies and entry points used among actors engaging in protecting democracy? How do the strategies differ between contexts and actors?
• What do we know about the effectiveness of measures to protect democracy, both within and across contexts?

With an exciting programme that includes engaging panel discussions and interactive sessions, this event will combine insights from diverse perspectives to facilitate exchange and reflection on how best to protect democracy.

Hinweis

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