Democracy Local

COLUMN World War 3 Has Come to Your Hometown

Attacks by authoritarian national governments on their own cities aren't just local conflicts. They constitute a global war.

Jamaima Afridi for Asia Democracy Chronicles, courtesy Asia Democracy Chronicles. (Jamaima is also that story's author)

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Aleksandra Wiśniewska (above), a 29-year-old political novice, who is now the youngest woman MP in Poland’s parliament. Courtesy of Aleksandra Wiśniewska/Instagram.

How to Win an Unfair Election

An exchange in Lodz reveals how the Polish opposition managed to defeat an authoritarian ruling party.

Polling place in Surrey, British Columbia (Canada) for global Khalistan referendum

The Global Vote On Sikh Autonomy

The Khalistan referendum is not just about the Punjab. It's a preview of a future with transnational direct...

The presidential and vice presidential candidates of Taiwan's ruling DPP party (Photo by Joe Mathews)

Can Democracy Survive 2024?

2024 is the biggest election year in history. That may be bad for democracy.

HK's District Elections Are New Target

More rules on district elections undermine democracy

Go to Bed, My City Council

Late-night decisions backfire

Reviving Brazil's Local Budgeting

Letter from Brazil, on the Birth, Decline, and Resurgence of Participatory Budgeting

A Peace Wall in Belfast, courtesy of photographer Stephen Wilson.

What Belfast and L.A. Have in Common

Democracy in divided cities requires remembering and forgetting.

The first gathering of the People's Assembly in Athens, Sept. 27 (photo by Joe Mathews)

The Next Democracy, On Athens Hill

Democracy was first built on a lot of loose rock.

I Went Back In Time to City Future

... a City's Democratic Future. I was more than a little startled when Konrad Adenauer approached me in the...

PHOTO CREDIT: A celebration outside the Louvre after Macron’s election victory in 2017. SOURCE: Photo by Lorie Shaull, via Flicker https://www.flickr.com/photos/number7cloud/34527195605 and Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

France: Too Central For Democracy?

Might this month’s French elections be the prelude to another French Revolution?