Center for Democracy

22/05/2024

The Open Government Week on 27th until 31st of May offers a splendid opportunity to meet democracy nerds around the world.

DD Center for Democracy, in collaboration with the Estonian Cooperation Assembly (Eesti Koostöö Kogu) and the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra contributes to this week with a webinar on Estonian and Finnish democracy innovations, namely citizen initiatives (collective addresses) and citizen assemblies (mini-publics).

Citizen initiatives stand as established innovations, with Finland’s 12 years and Estonia’s 10 years of experience, but they require further evolution. Deliberative mini-publics, widely regarded as the most impactful democratic innovation globally, are still maturing in Estonia and Finland. What’s the next phase for citizen initiatives and assemblies?

By fostering synergy between CIs, CAs, and complementary democratic practices, we can cultivate a more robust and participatory democratic landscape in two Nordic countries and beyond.

Join us on May 29 @ 12:00pm - 1:30pm Eastern European time (GMT+02:00) online!

Sign up and you get the registration link: https://www.opengovweek.org/event/democratic-innovations-in-estonia-and-finland-citizens-initiatives-and-citizens-assemblies/

Citizen initiatives stand as established innovations, with Finland’s 12 years and Estonia’s 10 years of experience, but they require further evolution. Deliberative mini-publics, widely regarded as one of the most prevalent democratic innovations globally, are still maturing in Estonia and Finla...

18/03/2024

Together with democratic innovators all over Europe, DD Center for Democracy urges the EU to invest in deliberative democratic processes to strengthen European democracies. By embracing deliberative democratic methods, the EU can not only enhance the legitimacy and effectiveness of decision-making but also nurture a sense of ownership and solidarity among citizens.

Our common ask:

🔦 A clear vision for Citizen Deliberation: Embed citizen deliberation objectives in the EU’s 2024-2029 Strategic Agenda, ensuring they meet high-quality standards and evaluation criteria to prevent ‘citizen washing’.

🔁 Structural Integration of Deliberative Citizens’ Assemblies: Incorporate Citizens’ Assemblies into EU political processes, including on contentious issues. Institutionalise deliberative processes and create a permanent Citizens’ Assembly with a clear mandate. Create a horizontal DG or unit tasked to coordinate the work on citizen participation and deliberation.

🤝 Create the conditions for robust processes in all Member States: Invest in building deliberative capacity across the EU. Dedicate financial resources to communities that don’t have the opportunity to organise deliberative processes.

We believe the next few months are a critical period in which to champion democratic innovation and citizen participation as central pillars of the European project.

You as well? Then share this post and join us in calling the EU and the Belgian Presidency for a firm commitment towards their citizens and our democracy!

📝 Read the full letter here: https://bit.ly/49YED9L

Initiators: G1000, Bureau Burgerberaad, DemNet Hungary (Foundation for Development of Democratic Rights), DemocracyNext, Mehr Demokratie e.V., Shipyard United Nations Foundation

06/10/2023

DD Foundation is a member of the Democracy R&D network - the global community of deliberative mini-publics practitioners, advocates and researchers. Currently the annual meeting takes place in Copenhagen, with our deliberative democracy expert Pehk presenting the ecosystem approach to sustain democracy innovations.

Organised by Do Democracy and Teknologirådet - Danish Board of Technology, happening at the cool democracy hub Demokrati Garage (we should have one in Estonia as well!).

10/09/2023

Our DD Center for Democracy actively contributed to and participated in the Open Government Partnership global summit in Tallinn.
The whole September week was full of inspiration and sparking people from all over the globe. We co-organized a world cafe session on the importance of dialogue, facilitated a campfire talk on climate victories, gave a walking presentation of our activities and as a side-event organized a Democracy Sauna for mapping the ecosystem of democracy innovations.
And as is common to Estonians, ended the buzzing week with real relaxation - saunas at the seaside.

Here is a small gallery of the democracy week in Tallinn.

18/07/2023

This summer, we're partnering up with democracy innovators from Sitra to have a discussion on innovating the democracies of Estonia and Finland at Arvamusfestival 2023: Demokraatia ala!

Joining the discussion are Onni Pekonen from Sitra, Ave Habakuk from Innotiim and Teele Pehk from DD.

The discussion focuses on the state of the art of democracy in Finland and Estonia and showcases inspiring innovations. How are everyday citizens engaged in decision-making and policy implementation? How is more trust created through meaningful collaboration, deliberations and dialogue?

16/06/2023

Another project has its kick-off meeting in Helsinki! This time we're empowering pan-Nordic discussions with partners Erätauko-säätiö, Arvamusfestival and Восток SOS.

Our project aims to enrich the Nordic public sphere with public debates on transnational problems, civic organisations trainings and joint vision-setting so that Nordic, Baltic and Ukrainian citizens can better understand and cooperate on transnational issues.

Europe and the Nordic region are facing challenges that require transnational solutions and decision-making. To sustain our democracies, the transnational public discussions have to grow as well.

Read more about this project: https://dd.foundation/nordic-public-discussion-project/

09/03/2023

We were finally able to visit our friends from Demo Finland and discuss almost all things around democracy development. Our collaboration will continue 🚀

We had nice guests and fruitful discussions on supporting democracy today as our Estonian colleagues from Center for Developing Democracy visited our office. The Center was founded last summer, and it’s mission is to build and strengthen democratic institutions in Estonia and around Europe.

We look forward to have more exchange and collaboration in the future!

26/01/2023

Democracy stands on the shoulders of education and education on the shoulders of science. Relevant in Estonia, but everywhere else as well.

Members of the councils of Estonian public universities made a joint statement, saying that it is high time for policymakers to start taking the critical situation in higher education seriously.

25/12/2022

Some interesting developments in protecting democracy against anti-democratic forces:

Thomas Haldenwang runs Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, fighting the enemies of German democracy — from far-right coup plotters to Russian hackers.

"It's my constitutional mission but it's also a personal mission," he said. https://nyti.ms/3hRDMlG