Political parties have a bad reputation in the eyes of many citizens, but they remain the fundamental institutions that represent citizens in democracies. Developing political party capacity has always been -- and shall continue to be -- a key component of NDI’s democracy support work. The Political Party Peer (PPPeer) Network has worked to improve collaboration and dialogue among political party assistance organizations, cultivating a global community of practice.

In most countries, elections, even imperfect ones, provide channels for citizens to influence the political process in profound ways, beyond the act of voting. While casting a ballot allows citizens to express their dissatisfaction with their elected leaders by removing them from office, often enough, the new representatives do not perform much better than their predecessors. Fortunately, voting is only one way that citizens can use elections to influence decisionmaking on public policy and service delivery.

Bosnia-Herzegovina’s journey from the Dayton Peace Accords to sustainable democracy has rested on the notion that ethnic power-sharing and highly decentralized government would, over time, give way to more integrated forms of government and politics. Ethnic interests, though still primary, would cease to be the exclusive basis on which power is won and exercised. Other forms of association – environmental, business, labor, students and pensioners, etc. – transcending ethnicity would take their place in the political system.

In two days the world will celebrate International Roma Day, which highlights the issues facing Romani people around the world.
Over the last decade, with funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), NDI has supported Roma political candidates, civic activists and elected officials as they seek to increase their participation in civic and political life.

More than 100 Kosovar women from all sectors of society traveled to Pristina last week for the fourth annual Week of Women (WoW). The weeklong event, supported by NDI, brings together Kosovar women to hone skills and techniques to help them become more effective leaders in their fields.

NDI is seeking an expert with extensive experience in political party development to provide technical assistance and continuous coaching to political parties in Algeria with a focus on citizen outreach, communications and party structure strengthening. This position is based in Algiers but includes regular travel throughout Algeria. The Resident Program Manager will report to NDI’s Resident Director. The estimated start date for this position is May 1, 2015, and the position will run through March 31, 2016, with possibility of extension.

As part of the celebration of International Women’s Day 2015, NDI’s Political Parties and Gender, Women and Democracy teams held a crowdsourcing and networking event on Twitter called a “TweetTalk” to share ideas, best practices and lessons learned when helping to engage more women in political parties.

As the Cold War came to a close, renowned political scientist, professor and author, Francis Fukuyama, proclaimed the end of history. He said humankind had reached the endpoint of its “ideological evolution,” and Western liberal democracy had won out as the “final form of human government." At around the same time, another influential political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington wrote that the world was in the middle of a “third wave” of democratic expansion. But 23 years later, the third democratic wave has hit a wall. According to Larry Diamond, founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, the rapid democratic expansion, which began in the 1970s and continued until 2005, is now in recession.

It has been a year since Luis María Duarte – a member of NDI’s 2014 Afghanistan election observation mission – was killed during a terrorist attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul. Luis, from Asuncion, Paraguay, was a long-time member of NDI’s global community and had been part of the Institute’s election missions in several countries. Beloved as a colleague and friend by so many across the globe, his death was a tremendous shock and loss to the elections community worldwide.

Late last month, a guest on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show told him: “Wherever we go...there is always something” stopping women from following their dreams. The guest? Not a firebrand feminist, but the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde. Her comments came as the IMF released a new report detailing the positive effect women’s economic empowerment has on our world: in short, when women are able to participate in the economy as equal members of the labor force, life improves for everyone. This may not be shocking new information—at least for those of us interested in the topic—but the report presents much-needed evidence to support its findings.