Democracy

Liberal democracies are struggling to effectively manage emergent global challenges such as climate change and the advent of AI. The decision-making tools they inherited from the 19th or 20th century are no longer sufficient to govern today’s society, resulting in a lack of trust in policymakers and institutions and a real sense of alienation amongst citizens from the democratic process. This, in turn, is driving greater levels of polarisation, leading to a lack of trust in each other. Debating Europe, our citizen engagement unit, leads initiatives to address these challenges by facilitating dialogue between citizens and policymakers, promoting a more engaged and informed democratic process. Learn more about their work here.

It is essential to envision a democracy fit for the 21st century, where citizens are motivated and empowered to participate in significant strategic and policy decisions that will impact their lives and the lives of generations to come.

Through the work of our Democracy programme complemented by our citizen engagement unit, Debating Europe, we will explore new forms of democratic engagement and keep gathering and analysing citizens’ needs, hopes and concerns via focus groups and surveys, which will underpin our journey of work towards developing a Renewed Social Contract for Europe by 2030, and ensure that Europe’s institutions and its member states can reframe and rebalance their relationship with the citizens they serve. Our work in 2024 will include:

Publication of “2024 Voices” report: In February we will publish the findings of our “2024 Voices” initiative, a comprehensive focus groups project featuring insights and policy recommendations gathered from 2,024+ citizens aged 18-65 across seven European countries – Poland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden.

Citizen panels: To further encourage discussion around the citizen-generated recommendations from the focus groups and foster further citizen input around Friends of Europe’s renewed social contract work, Debating Europe will run a series 16 live citizen panel debates to be held throughout 2024 in each of the seven countries in which we ran the “2024 Voices” initiative. All the debates will include a carefully selected group of policy– and decisionmakers engaging in discussion with a selection of participants from the focus groups.

TV Style debates: The outcome of the “2024 Voices” initiative and the 10 policy choices for a renewed social contract will form the basis for a series of 4 lively TV-style debates expected to take place before and after the European elections, involving policymakers across the full political national and European spectrum and a selection of focus groups participants.

Focus groups and surveys: Throughout the year, Debating Europe’s team will run a series of multilingual focus groups and polls involving our community of European citizens on a variety of topics linked to Friends of Europe’s areas of activities in-line with the renewed social contract. The qualitative and quantitative data generated from the focus groups and surveys will be analysed and distilled into a series of opinions and recommendations and debated with policymakers and experts at Friends of Europe activities so to provide a unique citizen perspective.

Podcasts: As part of our newly launched Democracy area of expertise, Debating Europe’s team will launch a series of 10 podcast episodes throughout 2024 exploring new forms of democracy fit for the 21st century, where citizens are motivated and empowered to participate in significant strategic and policy decisions that will impact their lives and the lives of generations to come. These podcasts will initiate debate and discussion beyond the episodes and encourage new ideas to regenerate democracy and promote new kinds of leadership. We will feature ideas, stories and contributions from our focus groups and surveys so that citizen’s concerns continue to be at the heart of the discussions.

Workshops: Throughout the year, Debating Europe will produce a series of democracy workshops aimed at furthering our strategic objective of promoting a new kind of leadership: A democracy that relies on greater participation requires access to information and skills – both individual and collective – that must be learned and practiced over time. Democracy workshops will be an educational and interactive way to empower citizens and civil society organisations with the right skills to make their voices heard and generate positive change in society. Workshops will be hosted by experts as well as our community partners, engaging interactively with an audience of citizens and civil society actors.