In this last piece of our EDP Wire Series, Jonas discusses the problems of the regional system of democracy promotion in the Americas. He argues that the region has one of the most advanced regimes of democracy and human rights protection world-wide, but that there are no regional actors that have sufficient credibility, capacity and political will to respond to the serious challenges to, and in part open crises of, democracy that can be observed in the region.

read more »

Julia discusses the various challenges that democracy promotion in Africa is faced with. She calls for more integrated approaches by donors and multilateral organizations, as well as a stronger recognition of and clear commitments to shared democratic norms between external democracy promoters and African societies.

read more »

This Wire is part of our EDP Wire Series featuring the contributions of our joint EDP policy paper. Once a week, you are invited to read a new article on one of the key issues that democracy promotion is currently …

read more »

This week Annika focusses on the second of two key actors on the world stage with regard to democracy promotion policies: the United States of America and their present administration’s democracy promotion policies. She argues that US democracy promotionis in a jam especially since Trump represents a low point for US credibility on the matter of democracy.

read more »

This week, Sonja turns to the European Union as one of the key actors on the world stage with regard to democracy promotion. Sonja argues that democracy promotion in the EU currently faces four main challenges: a loss of credibility, a lack of effectiveness, lacking willingness, and competition with regional powers’ counterveiling of European democracy promotion policies.

read more »

In her contribution to the EDP policy paper, Tina looks at a specific strategy of international governance assistance that some consider a promising alternative to the direct and explicit promotion of democracy and discusses whether democracy promotion through so called “functional cooperation” might be a solution to the current malaise

read more »

In this weeks contribution, Annika and Jonas zoom in on one particularly noticeable phenomenon – the global spread of shrinking spaces for civil society actors – and discuss how this affects international civil society support

read more »

In his contribution to the EDP policy paper, Johannes focuses on rebuting the alarming notion of a global democratic rollback. He shows us that there is no general rise in autocratic regimes, but worrying developments indeed with regard to the quality of democratic regimes world-wide in terms of political rights and civil liberties

read more »

Annika, Jonas, and Solveig take stock of the key challenges and trends in international democracy promotion in this weeks contribution. They introduce the overall question that informed the EDP policy report, suggest a reconceptualisation of democracy promotion research, and give a short overview over the coming contributions.

read more »

PRIF Report 13/2018, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt.

read more »