Global Democracy Network
Friday 18 September 2026 · London edition Independent · Non-partisan · Reader-supported
GLOBAL DEMOCRACY
NETWORK

Independent reporting on the
state of democracy, worldwide

THE WIRE
World · Half of US democracy indicators fall to 50-year lows, global index finds· Elections · New index ranks the 15 votes most at risk of violence· Press Freedom · Iran moves to criminalise contact with foreign media· Technology & AI · "Godfather of AI" says regulation is nearing a Covid-style pivot moment· Voices · Democracy is not inherited, it is argued for, again, by every generation· Next Generation · 12 to 17 year-olds are willing to engage, but feel anxious and unheard·

Elections · Analysis

What the year the world voted taught us about technology - and what Europe must do next

More than 60 nations went to the polls in 2024's super election cycle, and technology was on every ballot: AI used to engage voters and to fake them, political ads slipping through platforms unchecked, and misinformation moving into encrypted group chats. A new International IDEA study by Sofia Calabrese and Juliane Muller draws five hard lessons for the European Union - from closing the election-integrity gaps in the AI Act to replacing voluntary codes with binding rules for political advertising, backed by media literacy to tackle the polarisation underneath.

Source: International IDEA · Calabrese & Muller, October 2025 · Read the full publication at idea.int

Over 60 nations held critical votes in the 2024 super election cycle. Video: GDN

Press Freedom

The archivists racing to save the public record

The End of Term Web Archive - a coalition of the Internet Archive, Library of Congress and partner universities - crawls and preserves federal government websites around every presidential transition, before pages and datasets can quietly disappear.

Voices

South Korea launches a permanent climate citizens' assembly

Randomly selected citizen panels are moving from one-off experiments to standing institutions. South Korea's new permanent assembly, launched as its prime minister warned of the economic toll of inaction, is the latest government handing climate policy questions directly to the public.

Technology & AI

How recommender algorithms threaten election integrity

European Digital Rights (EDRi) sets out how opaque recommendation systems can shape what voters see during a campaign - and why regulators are only beginning to gain the technical access needed to inspect them.

World

Inside the EU's election observation mission to Colombia

Long hours, careful notebooks and absolute neutrality. The European Union's 2026 Election Observation Mission to Colombia shows what it actually takes for outside observers to assess whether a vote was free and fair.

Initiatives

Celebrating the people and programmes defending democracy

Election Administration · United States

A university pipeline for the next generation of poll workers

At Weber State University in Utah, students train with the Weber County Elections Office to become poll workers themselves, then recruit and train other students and volunteers in turn, so one cohort's experience becomes the next one's expertise. "They learn how to be poll workers, recruit other students and volunteers to serve as poll workers, and then train them," says Leah Murray, the university's Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor.

Source: Issue One, 2024

Open Justice · United Kingdom

Making family courts legible to the public

The Transparency Project, a registered charity (no. 1161471), explains family law and the family courts of England and Wales in plain language, publishing case analysis, guidance notes and a legal dictionary so journalists and the public can follow proceedings that were once closed to outside scrutiny by design.

Source: The Transparency Project

Local News · United States

Filling the information gap in America's news deserts

Fifty million Americans live in counties with no local newsroom, or just one, the Brennan Center for Justice finds - leaving voters without the coverage that once explained how, when and where to vote. Community initiatives such as VietFactCheck and Factchequado are stepping in, producing civic education and election information in Vietnamese and other languages for communities English-language outlets don't reach.

Source: Brennan Center for Justice, 2026

Debates

Public discussion, on the record - from London and beyond

Report · City St George's, University of London

The press under pressure: journalism's new defenders launch a centre of its own

March 2026 · London · Two-day forum

The UK Media Freedom Forum, co-organised with the Foreign Policy Centre, the Justice for Journalists Foundation and the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute, doubled as the launch of City St George's new Centre for Journalism and Democracy. Speakers including Carole Cadwalladr, CPJ's Jodie Ginsberg and MP Sir John Whittingdale addressed lawfare, SLAPPs and what Centre Chair Julie Posetti called the "broligarchy" - authoritarianism merged with tech-oligarch power.

Source: City St George's, University of London

Watch again · LSE

Artificial Intelligence and Democracy

Recorded · Online public event

Watch on YouTube · LSE

A London School of Economics panel - Etienne Brown, Jocelyn Maclure, Zeynep Pamuk and Annette Zimmermann, chaired by Thomas Ferretti - examines how "black box" algorithms in public administration, facial recognition and political microtargeting test democratic accountability and public scrutiny.

Source: LSE, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method

Watch again · United States

Surrounded: politicians take the empty chair opposite twenty young voters who disagree with them

Ongoing series · Jubilee Media

Governors, members of Congress and Senate candidates - among them Wes Moore, Ro Khanna and Pete Buttigieg - sit through hours of unscripted questioning from a room of Gen Z critics, in a format one aide called a response to Democrats having "lost the Internet and... the young vote."

Source: NPR, July 2026

Watch again · United States

A Conversation with Barack Obama

Recorded · Public address

Watch on YouTube

Former President Barack Obama speaks on the health of American and global democracy - the responsibilities of citizenship, the fragility of democratic norms, and what it takes to keep self-government legitimate in the eyes of the people it governs.

Source: YouTube

Next Generation

The under-30s building democracy's future
A group of teenagers and young adults sitting together on steps outside, in conversation

Research · United Kingdom

12 to 17 year-olds are willing to engage in democracy - but feel anxious, unheard and distrustful of politics

A new Royal Holloway, University of London study of 993 young people aged 12-17 finds nearly three-quarters would vote if given the chance - yet report significant anxiety about their futures and limited trust in political parties. Plus: the Council of Europe's youth manifesto for 2049, and why Gen-Z is rising worldwide.

Read Next Generation →

Why we report

The Global Democracy Network exists to cover democracy the way the wires cover markets: continuously, factually and without favour. We report on the institutions that make self-government work - elections, courts, parliaments, a free press - and on the people, young and old, who defend them.

We celebrate initiatives that strengthen democratic life anywhere in the world, and we scrutinise threats to it with the same rigour. Our standard is simple: accurate, verified, and written to be understood everywhere.