Democracy IDEAs – Details, episodes & analysis

There are many lessons to be learned from what collectively came to be known as the 'Supercycle Election Year' of 2024. Together with the European Partnership of Democracy (EPD), International IDEA have published the report ‘The Election Year 2024 and Tech Policy around the World’, which identifies key features and gaps in tech policy around the world with implications for democracy to synthesize a series of regulatory recommendations for the European Union.

In this podcast, we sit down with Juliane Müller from International IDEA and Sofia Calabrese from EPD, the authors of the Supercycle report. Together, they discuss what institutions, coordination strategies, and regulatory instruments are needed to protect the integrity of elections. 

Drawing on examples from around the world, they share insights on how to address the challenges of web-based election cycles through international regulatory standards, interagency collaboration, and cross-sectoral multistakeholder engagement. 

They also explore how coexisting EU frameworks such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), the AI act, the EU Democracy Shield, and the EU Omnibus package can work in contradiction to simultaneously reinforce and undermine democratic protections.

To get the full picture, read the ‘The Election Year 2024 and Tech Policy around the World’.

In this episode, Sharon Pia Hickey Programme Officer at International IDEA’s Constitution-Building and Climate Change and Democracy programmes speaks with Thai lawyer Sor Rattanamanee Polkla, Executive Coordinator, and Co-Founder of Community Resources Centre Foundation about the landscape of climate and environmental litigation in Thailand. 

Drawing on her experience with cases focusing on extractive industries, development projects, and public interest law, Sor tracks her path from realising the importance of protest and shares a message for climate lawyers across the region.

Background reading: Let the courts decide? The Potential and Limitations of Climate Litigation from a Democracy Perspective

In this episode of Peer-to-Peer, we speak to Saket Ambarkhane about the impacts of natural hzards on Indian elections and the growing concern over the effects of climate change on future elections. With Ambarkhane, we explore how different events, such as the heatwaves during the 2024 election, impacted various steps of the electoral process like campaigning, polling day, and voter turnout.

Ambarkhane also explains how the different levels of EMBs (federal vs regional) have mitigated such events and the numerous tools India uses to build resilience against natural hazards.

Guest: Saket Ambarkhane is an elections expert, having previously worked for the Electoral Commission of India and International IDEA.  

Hosts: Erik Asplund

Background Reading: 

• Natural Hazards and Elections in India: Lessons in Adaptation and Mitigation 
• The Impact of Natural Hazards on Elections

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing in the sphere of electoral administration, still its impact has yet to be fully understood. What lessons on electoral AI from the 2024 Supercycle election year can we bring into 2025? How might Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) plan to incorporate AI into their work and what consequences would this have for democracy?

In this podcast episode, Juliane Müller, Associate Programme Officer at the Digitalization and Democracy Programme sits down with Prathm Juneja, PhD candidate in Social Data Science at the Oxford Internet Institute and expert for International IDEA's AI for Electoral Actors project to answer these questions and more.

This episode is the first in a series for the AI for Electoral Actors project that aims to raise AI literacy among EMBs in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Balkans and Eastern Europe. 

Read more about the project: https://www.idea.int/project/ai-electoral-actors

Background Reading: 

• https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/artificial-intelligence-electoral-management 
• https://www.idea.int/news/democratic-foundation-electoral-ai-1
• https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/global-digital-compact-democracy
• https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/codes-conduct-rise-fair-and-ethical-political-campaigning-online

A pesar de los avances en la representación política de las mujeres en América Latina, persisten desafíos significativos, como la violencia de género en la política. 

En esta conversación con Marcela Ríos Tobar, directora regional de IDEA Internacional para América Latina y El Caribe, exploramos hallazgos, repercusión y recomendaciones para hacer frente a este problema que a veces se trivializa o subestima.

Según el informe y un estudio de ONU Mujeres, el 80% de las mujeres entrevistadas en 15 países manifestaron que limitaron su participación en las redes, y el 40% se autocensuró.  

El impacto de la violencia política de género requiere soluciones de conjunto para prevenir y mitigar sus efectos.

Violencia política de género en la esfera digital en América Latina: https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/violencia-politica-de-genero-en-la-esfera-digital-en-america-latina?lang=es

International IDEA's Outreach and United Nations Liaison Officer, Amanda Sourek, talked to Ambassador Bob Rae, who serves as the 80th President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council and has been the Permanent Representative of Canada to the UN since 2020. 

Bob Rae discussed the role of youth in politics, the deadlock in the Security Council, the crisis in Myanmar, Russia's war against Ukraine, the 2030 Agenda, how democracy is portrayed at the UN, and the role of civil society in multilateral engagement. 

Background Reading

• UN Charter: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter
• Bob Rae’s biography: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/un-onu/new-york-rep.aspx?lang=eng
• Vision and activities of Ambassador Bob Rae as the 80th President of ECOSOC: https://ecosoc.un.org/en/about-us/vision-and-activities-president

Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Honorary President of the Club of Roam and co-author of Earth For All: A Survival Guide for Humanity’ has gathered the knowledge of an international team of scientists, economic thinkers, and multidisciplinary experts, to five extraordinary turnarounds to achieve wellbeing and prosperity for all, reduce social tension and ensure strong democracies within planetary boundaries.

She discussed with International IDEA's Communicators Director Alistair Scrutton how to achieve global sustainable policies win a world of economic inequality, backsliding democracies and political polarisation.

Background Reading: 'Earth For All: A Survival Guide for Humanity’

An interview with Luisa Neubauer, a German climate campaigner who is using both the courts and civic groups to push authorities to take climate policy more seriously.

Access International IDEA's databases, reports and initiatives on Climate Change and Democracy: https://www.idea.int/theme/climate-change-and-democracy 

This is the second of a three-episode series featuring LEGITIMULT, its findings and tools for addressing and solving future crises. 

Drawing from the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic the LEGITIMULT (Legitimate Crisis Governance in Multilevel Systems) project  aims to identify a model of political legitimate crisis governance that takes into account the interplay between international, national, regional and local governments and institutions.

Its guiding research question “Which conditions contribute to democratically legitimate crisis governance?” will allow governments and policy makers to better face the crises of the future. The aim is not only to have effective responses, but that these measures respect and guarantee basic human rights and freedoms.  

LEGITIMULT is funded through Horizon Europe and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

Guests:

• Ida Karkiainen, Member of the Swedish Parliament, Chair of the Committee on the Constitution
• Dr Andreas Kiefer, former Secretary General of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe (2010-2022)

Co-hosted by:

·       Gentiana Gola, Adviser for Europe at the Democracy Assessment team, International IDEA

·       Dr Marcus Guderjan, Researcher at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin.

On the sidelines of the launch of IDEA’s latest report on climate assemblies in the Global South, Billie Phillips spoke to Dr Sanskriti Menon about the power of citizen assemblies as a tool of public participation in governance  and her experience working with assemblies in both rural and urban communities in India. 

Guest: Dr Sanskriti Menon

Background Reading: 

• “We need a new story of deliberative democracy” – IDEA launches new report on Climate Assemblies
• Deliberative Democracy and Climate Change: Exploring the Potential of Climate Assemblies in the Global South