This study documents and illustrates how civil society around the world has been responding to the challenges of shrinking space. This study focuses on matters of democratic participation, citizen election observation, and digital democracy drawn from studies and interviews with approximately 40 activists and specialists from around the world.
Version July 2019
This collection of documents focused on supporting EU Delegations in taking actions to strengthen Access to Information within their local context, meaning supporting the fundamental right of citizens in a democracy to access information on Government activities.
These files are destined mainly for the use of European Commission Staff in HQ and delegations as well as EU Member States.
This collection contains materials to strengthen EU Delegations actions to counter disinformation and strengthen independent media during COVID. There are Media4Democracy expert analyses with recommendations to the EU Delegations to Venezuela and Brazil.
The related 5-part webinar series, Defending Independent Media During COVID-19, is available here.
These files are destined for the use of European Commission Staff in HQ and delegations as well as EU Member States.
V-Dem is a unique approach to measuring democracy – historical, multidimensional, nuanced, and disaggregated – employing
state-of-the-art methodology. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute’s seventh annual Democracy Report 2023: Defiance in the Face of Autocratization highlights some of the ongoing challenges democracies face, but also showcases new cases where agents have reclaimed democracy and stopped negative trends.
V-Dem Institute, 2023
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), citizen election observation has always been characterised by a multitude of actors, lack of resources and methodological weaknesses. The involvement of impartial, quality, citizen election observation for the 2018 elections was therefore an important challenge for both the people of DRC but also for the international community.
Version October 2019
Also available in: French
This collection of documents contains Media4Democracy reports, briefing notes, analysis and recommendations focused on strengthening EU Delegation actions to counter disinformation.
These files are destined mainly for the use of European Commission Staff in HQ and delegations as well as EU Member States.
This guide is a publicly available resource for any organisation that wishes to observe social media in elections. It was written in particular for civil society organisations that observe social media in their own country, and uses as little jargon as possible to make this technical topic easy to understand.
Version March 2019
Also available in: French
The purpose of this guide is to provide citizen observers with a clear framework for understanding good practices in terms of their approach to external communications, namely the critically important pre-election statements, post-election preliminary statement and the final report with recommendations.
Version March 2019
Also available in: French
This step-by-step guide is aimed primarily at citizen observer groups and other CSOs that are interested in leveraging their potential to play an influential role in improving electoral processes throughout the electoral cycle. It provides user-friendly guidance on how citizen observer groups and others can effectively follow up on observer recommendations using the existing networks, visibility and capacity that they developed during the elections.
Version March 2019
Also available in: French
The purpose of this guide is to provide citizen observers with a clear understanding of how women’s participation can be assessed in each phase of the electoral cycle and in each electoral process that they may observe. The guide provides information helpful for analysis of the gender perspective of each phase, with ideas for methodology, questions to ask and checklist questions as appropriate.
Version March 2019
Also available in: French
This guide aims to increase awareness of the range of ‘tools’ available for civil society organisations (CSOs) to prevent and/or mitigate electoral violence throughout the electoral cycle. The guide identifies 19 tools that CSOs can use to prevent and/or mitigate electoral violence. These tools were identified following an extensive review of recent civil society initiatives and interviews with practitioners from all regions of the world.
Version March 2019
Also available in: French
This webinar aims to improve the knowledge among EU staff in the area of democracy, with a focus on digitalisation and to provide guidance on how to mainstream those two dimensions in EU programming and operations. The objective is to inform EU staff, in particular staff based at EU Delegations (EUDs), about the opportunities and threats related to digital technologies and their impact on the democratic institutions.
Duration: 40 min