On 25 May 2017, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and former President of the United States, Barack Obama, addressed the crowd at the German Protestant Kirchentag festival in Berlin. With the theme as, “Being Involved in Democracy: Taking on Responsibility Locally …

By Leigh Crossett, NID Intern

In April 2016, Hong Kong students, Joshua Wong and Nathan Law, founded a new pro-democracy political party called ‘Demosisto’ (Branigan). Derived from the Latin words, “demos”, meaning “the people”, and “sisto”, meaning “standing up”, the …

By Leigh Crossett, NID Intern

On 19 May 2017, Iranian voters took to the polls to elect their new city and village councilors in tandem with the presidential election. While the power of city and village councils’ are limited as …

By Leigh Crossett, NID Intern

On 25 May 2017, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and former President of the United States, Barack Obama, addressed the crowd at the German Protestant Kirchentag festival in Berlin. With the theme as, “Being Involved in …

By Ava Sassani, NID Intern

With more than 10,000 microfinance institutions standing as fixtures of the world’s developing economies today (Microfinance Market Outlook, 2014), microfinance, the technique of combating poverty through the opening of traditionally inaccessible financial channels, remains alive …

movements are strongly related to the legitimacy of rulers; always in these occasions the legitimacy of the existing situation is under question. In the modern time, people are the source of legitimacy and their frustration means the legitimacy of the system is severely damaged

Basic democratic freedoms like freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and an independent judiciary have suffered in Russia in recent years and many people, particularly the youth, have started to mobilize one another to demand a stronger democratic system free of corruption and intimidation. Oleg has been one of the leaders in this growing pro-democracy movement, training young people in nonviolent methods of resistance.

On June 10, at 11:30 in the morning, Mexico City’s Zócalo Plaza began to fill with people wearing creative outfits and carrying posters and signs. Yo Soy 132 academics, Yo Soy 132 artists, the “free journalists 132” and everyday citizens —retirees, children, mothers and entire families — arrived from every corner of the huge plaza.

The era of globalization favors the expansion of democracy, but global-level and national discourses of democracy often are inattentive to the gendered nature of democratization processes (and it cannot be assumed that neoliberal capitalism is compatible with substantive democracy). A gender analysis is needed for a deeper understanding of democracy and of democratic transitions.

We undermine the quality of our democracy, the strength of our economies, the health of our societies and the sustainability of peace. This year’s focus of International Women’s Day on women’s equal access to education, training, science and technology underscores the need to tap this potential.