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This Brief presents some findings on the Summit for Democracy process from the perspective of participating countries based on a selected number of interviews with representatives from the governments of six countries (Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Zambia) and the European Union (European External Action Service).
Despite widespread claims that parliamentary systems with an indirectly elected president produce better outcomes for democratic governance, constitutional reform to move away from a directly elected president to an indirectly elected president is extremely rare.
Organising the first post-war elections will pose unprecedented challenges for Ukraine, as a significant part of the electoral infrastructure has been damaged, and millions of voters are now displaced within or outside the country.
The European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) covers six countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The Covid-19 pandemic put a strain on fledgling democracies in the EaP region, aggravating pre-existing concerns, such as the weak rule of law, insufficient accountability of executive branches vis-à-vis legislatures and fragile media freedoms (see International IDEA 2022).
International IDEA and the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD) organized a conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2005 on constitutional and political reform in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was dedicated to the exchange of information about the reform process in the three South Caucasus countries and the prospects for their European integration.
In recent years, the debate about lowering the voting age has intensified in many countries. Typically, young people around the world can head to the polls between 16 and 18 years of age, although some nations like Singapore and Taiwan set the age at 21 and 20, respectively.