Stories

Member Story
Shadows of the Past: How Soviet Inferiority Narratives Hinder Democracy in Moldova and Ukraine
Post-Soviet countries like Ukraine and Moldova are deeply influenced by inferiority narratives — pervasive beliefs of national inadequacy rooted in Soviet-era legacies. This article examines how these narratives shape...
IDC Theme of the Month
From Backsliding to Breakthrough: Civil Society as Democracy's Last Line of Defence
Democracy does not vanish overnight; instead, it erodes step by step. Authoritarianism grows in the cracks, but so does civic resistance. Around the world, civil society is proving that when democratic institutions weaken,...
European Union
An online platform to support ECIs
At ECI Day this week, the European Commission announced the launch of a new online platform to support...
European Union
Under construction: the ECI
This year's European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) Day showed once again that the world's first and only...
European Union
ECI Day 2018: Working together
On April 10, 2018, the ECI Day took place in Brussels for the seventh time, with the main organiser and host...
European Union
“We are fighting with unequal means”
In a last-minute bit of good news ahead of this year’s ECI Day, the ‘Minority SafePack’ European Citizens’...
Taiwan
How Taiwan got one of world´s best direct democracy laws
The first European explorers from Portugal called this land simply Ilha Formosa, the beautiful island. Today...
Peru
The missed opportunity of direct demoracy in Peru
After almost a century of politically and economically turbulent times, Peru has re-established democratic...
Global
What drives citizen participation?
For seven years, Dr Klaus Hofmann has been researching legal instruments of direct democracy worldwide for...
Belgium
Crowdsourcing is a step forward in citizen participation
This year's Digital Democracy Day, initiated by ECAS, focused on the question of how crowdsourcing can...
Global
All roads lead to Rome – Join us for the 2018 Global Forum on Modern...
Climate change, inequality, conflict - our challenges today are so great that we cannot pretend to be able...
Germany
What companies can teach democracy
The most successful companies have learned how to continuously adapt to new challenges, if we want to make...