The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) is an intergovernmental organization that works to support and strengthen democratic institutions and processes around the world, to develop sustainable, effective and legitimate democracies. It has regional offices in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, Africa and West Asia, and North America. The organization is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.
Kevin Casas Zamora is the secretary-general as of August 2019. Previously, Casas Zamora was Costa Rica's second Vice President and Minister of National Planning. Yves Leterme, former deputy secretary-general at the OECD and former Prime Minister of Belgium, was the previous secretary-general from 2014 to 2019. Leterme replaced Vidar Helgesen.
The early 1990s were marked by challenges to democracy worldwide. The violent crackdown in Tiananmen Square in China happened in 1989, and Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina were all on a slow, difficult road toward democracy after having suffered similarly cruel military coups and dictatorships. Despite a long tradition of autocracy in South Korea, democratic dissident Kim Dae-jung became president. Nelson Mandela's release in 1990 after serving 28 years in prison marked South Africa's first step toward democracy. There were also wide-ranging discussions in other parts of Africa and Asia about how to incorporate democratic norms into their traditions and cultures. [citation needed]
More and more people around the world needed good advice about a number of choices that had to be made in order to make democracy work. In response to this need Sweden, along with 13 other countries took the initiative to found The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, International IDEA.
The Founding Conference of International IDEA took place on 27–28 February 1995 and involved 14 founding states: Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden. The institute's four initial fields of activity were defined as: (1) the creation of a databank and provision of information services; (2) research; (3) establishing and promotion of guidelines and (4) offering advisory and capacity-building services.[1]
The institute's original structure consisted of a board of 9–15 persons, appointed in their personal capacities rather than as representatives of member states, which developed the work programme. The council (composed of one representative of each member and associate member) was responsible for approving the work programme and budget—despite not being consulted about their development—and for making sure the contributions supported the work program. A founding ‘nucleus' board was established that comprised Shridath Ramphal, Adama Dieng and David Steel. Bengt Säve-Söderbergh, who was instrumental in the process of creating International IDEA from the start, was appointed its first secretary-general. Due to practical difficulties and overlapping responsibilities between the board and council, this model later changed.
International IDEA was able to immediately start work designing ethical codes and professional rules and guidelines for electoral processes, and developed three extremely useful handbooks in the very beginning on Electoral System Design,[3] Democracy and Deep-rooted Conflict,[4] and Women in Parliament.[5]
As part of the institute's 20th anniversary celebration in 2015, Bengt Säve-Söderbergh wrote an essay, "The Birth of an IDEA",[6] that captures how the organization was born and its relevancy. Säve-Söderbergh is the first secretary-general of International IDEA.
Mission
International IDEA's mission is to "International IDEA advances, promotes and protects sustainable democracy worldwide in consideration of human rights commitments through policy-relevant knowledge, capacity development, advocacy, and the convening of dialogues".[7] Additionally, International IDEA is dedicated to the following tasks:
Assist countries build capacity to develop democratic institutions.
Provide a forum between policy-makers, academics and practitioners.
Synthesize research and field experience, and develop practical tools to improve democratic processes.
Facilitate local democracy assessment, monitoring and promotion by local citizens.
Key activities
Electoral Processes - Support for electoral processes has been at the heart of International IDEA's work since its foundation in 1995. International IDEA's Statutes provide a mandate for the institute's efforts to improve and consolidate democratic electoral processes worldwide. By generating global comparative knowledge, non-prescriptive analysis and policy recommendations aimed at the design, establishment and consolidation of sustainable and credible locally owned electoral processes, the Institute responds to the needs of target audiences. Those include electoral management bodies (EMBs) and electoral practitioners, legislative and judicial bodies, academics, civil society, election observers, as well as development agencies and democracy assistance organizations.
Constitution-building - Together with local, regional and global partners, the Constitution-building programme raises awareness of the role constitution-building processes play in managing conflict and consolidating democracy. The work involves: Providing technical assistance to national actors engaged in processes of constitution building. Providing knowledge and capacity-building resources that individuals and groups can use to strengthen their participation, and its quality, in processes of constitution building. Facilitating access to lesson learning in comparative contexts so that national, regional and international actors have more options to consider in dealing with different constitutional issues. Servicing a global community of constitution building practitioners through physical and virtual spaces for dialogue.
Political Participation and Representation - This programme supports political parties focusing on four areas. Party Law and Finance: to improve regulation on party and candidate finance. The Political Party Organization: to allow political parties to develop policy platforms. Political Party Dialogue: to seek consensus within the prevailing political culture of competition, through more effective interparty dialogue. And effective Party Assistance: to strengthen the alignment of approaches in party assistance.
Democracy Assessment - The Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Initiative was launched in 2016 to analyze current trends and challenges impacting on democracy worldwide. The GSoD Initiative provides evidence-based analysis and data on the global and regional state of democracy. It also seeks to contribute to the public debate on democracy, inform policy interventions and identify problem-solving approaches to trends affecting the quality of democracy. The first report[8] was released in 2017. The Global State of Democracy 2023 Report[9] focused on how "The global state of democracy in 2023 is complex, fluid and unequal". The Global State of Democracy Indices[10] also offers data for anyone to use.
International IDEA offers several online tools and databases including the Voter Turnout Database, Electoral Risk Management tool and the IntegriTAS Threat Assessment System.[11] Anyone can access data on topics such as voter turnout, electoral system design,[12] quotas for women and political finance laws and regulations.[13] Issues of gender, diversity, conflict and security are also addressed. Data from the International IDEA Political Finance Database relating to political disclosure is used as an indicator of public transparency and accountability in the Basel AML Index, a money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment tool developed by the Basel Institute on Governance.
In the past, Member States took turns hosting a Democracy Forum that encouraged dialogue across Member States and with civil society actors, academia and youth. Past Democracy Forum topics have included anti-corruption, accountability, natural resource management and youth participation.
Internal structure
International IDEA's nearly 300 staff members are located in various offices worldwide. The headquarters is in Stockholm, Sweden, with additional offices in New York, USA; Washington, DC, USA, Brussels, Belgium; The Hague, Netherlands; Kathmandu, Nepal; Abuja, Nigeria; Suva, Fiji; Thimphu, Bhutan; Santiago, Chad; The Gambia; Kenya; Sierra Leone, Chile; Lima, Panama City, Panama; Peru; Asunción; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Tunis, Tunisia; Canberra, Australia.
Chile's government is a representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Chile is both head of state and head of government, and of a formal multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and by their cabinet. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Congress. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature of Chile.
The politics of Costa Rica take place in a framework of a presidential, representative democratic republic, with a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and their cabinet, and the President of Costa Rica is both the head of state and head of government. Legislative power is vested in the Legislative Assembly. The president and 57 Legislative Assembly deputies are elected for four-year terms. The judiciary operates independently from the executive and the legislature, but is involved in the political process. Costa Rica has a strong system of constitutional checks and balances. Voting is compulsory de jure, but this is not enforced.
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) is an international, non-profit organisation founded in 1987. Based in Arlington, Virginia, United States, the organization assists and supports elections and electoral stakeholders. Since 1987, IFES has worked in 145 countries and has programs in more than 50 countries throughout Asia-Pacific, Africa, Eurasia, the Middle East, and North Africa, and the Americas.
Election monitoring involves the observation of an election by one or more independent parties, typically from another country or from a non-governmental organization (NGO). The monitoring parties aim primarily to assess the conduct of an election process on the basis of national legislation and of international election standards. There are national and international election observers.
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a non-profit American non-governmental organization whose stated mission is to "support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability". It is funded primarily by the United States and other Western governments, by major corporations and by nonprofits like the Open Society Foundations.
Kevin Eugene Deveaux is a Canadian lawyer and an international expert on parliaments and political parties who worked for the United Nations as the senior global adviser on parliaments and their development from 2008-2012. He served as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the constituency of Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. He was first elected in 1998 and was re-elected in 1999, 2003 and 2006. He has also worked for a number of other development organizations in promoting good governance, transparent and accountable parliaments and effective political parties.
Open-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is democratically opened to the general citizenry, employing their collective wisdom to benefit the decision-making process and improve democracy.
The Community of Democracies (C.O.D), established in 2000, is an intergovernmental coalition of states. Its aim is to bring together governments, civil society and the private sector in the pursuit of the common goal of supporting democratic rules, expanding political participation, advancing and protecting democratic freedoms, and strengthening democratic norms and institutions around the world. The Warsaw Declaration had outlined the task of promoting democracy. It is disputed if the coalition qualifies as an International Organization in the legal sense.
The International Knowledge Network of Women in Politics is an online workspace designed to serve the needs of elected officials, candidates, political party leaders and members, researchers, students and other practitioners interested in advancing women in politics.
Democracy promotion, also referred to as democracy building, can be domestic policy to increase the quality of already existing democracy or a strand of foreign policy adopted by governments and international organizations that seek to support the spread of democracy as a system of government. In practice, it entails consolidating and building democratic institutions
Kevin Casas-Zamora is a Costa Rican politician, lawyer and political scientist. Casas-Zamora is Secretary General of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an inter-governmental organization based in Stockholm; and Senior Fellow and former Director of the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy research center based in Washington D.C. Prior to that he was Secretary for Political Affairs at the Organization of American States and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He also served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy as well as second Vice President of Costa Rica under Óscar Arias from May 8, 2006 until September 22, 2007. He earned his JD from the University of Costa Rica, his MA from the University of Essex, and his DPhil from the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis, titled “Paying for Democracy in Latin America: Political Finance and State Funding for Parties in Costa Rica and Uruguay,” won the 2004 Jean Blondel PhD Prize from the European Consortium for Political Research for best thesis in politics in Europe and was later developed into a book, under the title "Paying for Democracy." In 2007 Casas-Zamora was selected as Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Since 2013, he is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee.
Electoral boundary delimitation is the drawing of boundaries of electoral precincts and related divisions involved in elections, such as states, counties or other municipalities. It can also be called "redistribution" and is used to prevent unbalance of population across districts. In the United States, it is called redistricting. Unbalanced or discriminatory delimitation is called "gerrymandering." Though there are no internationally agreed processes that guarantee fair delimitation, several organizations, such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Union and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) have proposed guidelines for effective delimitation.
The International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS) is an independent NGO, founded in 1994 which aims to promote public policy concepts and practice and apply them to influential policy research that affects both the public and private sectors in Ukraine.
Political party funding is a method used by a political party to raise money for campaigns and routine activities. The funding of political parties is an aspect of campaign finance.
Andrew Stephen Reynolds is an author and professor of political science at University of North Carolina. Reynolds is a specialist in democratization, electoral system design, constitutional design, minority rights and ethnic conflict.
A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states. Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.
Electoral integrity refers to the fairness of the entire voting process and how well the process protects against election subversion, voter suppression, and other threats to free and fair elections. The consequences of unfree or unfair elections can include doubts in the legitimacy of the outcome, loss of faith in the democratic system, and reduced future participation.
The Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa (IDASA) later known as the Institute for Democracy in South Africa was a South African-based think-tank organisation that was formed in 1986 by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert and Alex Boraine. Its initial focus from 1987 was creating an environment for white South Africans to talk to the banned liberation movement in-exile, the African National Congress (ANC) prior to its unbanning in 1990 by the President F. W. de Klerk. After the South African election in 1994, its focus was on ensuing the establishment of democratic institutions in the country, political transparency and good governance. Caught up in a funding crisis after the Great Recession, it closed in 2013.
The European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES) is a not-for-profit, private, non-partisan and independent foundation with its headquarters in the capital of Belgium, Brussels.
Reynolds, Andrew (1997). Electoral system design: the new international IDEA handbook (volume 1). Stockholm, Sweden: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
Reynolds, Andrew; Reilly, Ben; Ellis, Andrew (2005). Electoral system design: the new international IDEA handbook. Stockholm, Sweden: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). ISBN9789185391189.
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