2022 Annual Report
2021 Annual Report
Journal of Democracy
For more than twenty years, the Journal of Democracy has been a leading voice in the conversation about government by consent and its place in the world. The Journal is published for the National Endowment for Democracy by the Johns Hopkins University Press and is available to subscribers through Project MUSE.
Blog: Democracy Digest
Democracy Digest is the blog of the National Endowment for Democracy, providing news and analysis about democratic ideas and institutions, human rights, civil society, authoritarianism, and related issues.
Key NED Documents
2019 Annual Report
The past year, like the entire dispiriting decade that has now ended, was a time of deep concern for the future of democracy. Political rights and civil liberties declined for the 14th consecutive year, according to latest Freedom House survey, and the negative global trends that have accounted for the current democratic recession showed no signs of abating.
2018 Annual Report
In recent years, the NED and other organizations working to advance democracy have been challenged by what is commonly called a democratic recession. The term refers to a global crisis of democracy that has a number of different dimensions: the rising power of authoritarian countries such as China and Russia, the backsliding of many new democracies like Hungary and the Philippines, the closing space for independent civic organizations, and a crisis of pluralism in many long established Western democracies.
Global Insights: COVID-19 and the Information Space
The essays in this "Global Insights" series are the product of six workshops held by the International Forum for Democratic Studies during the spring and summer of 2020. These workshops—which gathered civil society representatives, journalists, academics, researchers, donor organizations, and policymakers—aimed to assess the likely challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic would pose to the democratic health and integrity of the “information space,” or the broad public square in which societies exchange information and debate ideas.
New report on COVID-19 and Democracy calls for urgent measures by governments and civil society
A new report, ‘Global Democracy and COVID-19: Upgrading International Support’, highlights how some governments are using the public health crisis to further curtail democratic activities and provides recommendations for policymakers and civil society to counteract the negative impacts of Covid-19 on democracy.
2020 A STRATEGY FOR DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL: MEETING THE CHALLENGES AHEAD
When the National Endowment for Democracy produced its first strategy document in 1992, democracy’s continued expansion appeared inexorable. Nearly three decades later, after years of negative global trends that have been called the democratic recession, such optimism about democracy’s prospects seems profoundly unrealistic.
But the recession is being countered today by surprising democratic resilience. Since the spring of 2018, when authoritarian regimes unexpectedly fell in Ethiopia, Armenia, and Malaysia, grassroots movements of protest against corruption and unaccountable autocratic governments have swept through many countries and regions. In this new period, NED plans to focus on six urgent priorities.
Sharp Power and Democratic Resilience Series
International Forum for Democratic Studies' Sharp Power and Democratic Resilience series aims to contextualize the nature of sharp power, inventory key authoritarian efforts and domains, and illuminate ideas for non-governmental action that are essential to strengthening democratic resilience.
2017 Annual Report
For the second consecutive year, NED has funded programs in six strategic areas that help democrats respond to the threat posed by resurgent authoritarianism. The 88 strategic programs that NED supported in 2017 have included: Helping Civil Society Prevail Against the New Repression, Defending the Integrity of the Information Space, Combatting Modern Kleptocracy, Strengthening Democratic Unity in Defense of Democratic Standards and Values, Fostering Ethnic and Religious Pluralism Against Extremist Movements and Strengthening the Capacity for Democratic Governance.
2016 Annual Report
NED’s principal task during the last year was to analyze the new threats to democracy, work with its core institutes and the NED Board to shape a strategic plan of action, and begin to implement that plan by making “strategic” grants supporting programs to press back against the authoritarian resurgence in the hope of giving new momentum to the global fight for democracy.
2015 Annual Report
The year 2015 ended with a series of reports that certainly made gloomy reading for the world’s democrats. Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2015 survey reported a 10th consecutive year of decline in global freedom; Human Rights Watch’s report on 2015 highlighted a global roll-back of human rights and a “great civil society choke-out;” and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index concluded that “an increased sense of anxiety and insecurity in the face of diverse perceived risks and threats— economic, political, social and security—is undermining democracy.”
2014 Annual Report
2014 marked another challenging year for freedom and democracy. As measured by Freedom House, nearly twice as many countries suffered declines as registered gains in political rights, civil liberties and other democratic standards.
2012 Annual Report
NED marked the year 2012 with celebrations of three key milestones: the 30th anniversary of President Reagan’s Westminster speech that helped launch the idea of a bipartisan institution to advance democracy abroad; the 10th anniversary of the Fellows program named for President Reagan and former congressman Dante Fascell, who had called for establishment of a NED-like body back in the 1960s; and the 5th anniversary of NED’s Center for International Media Assistance.
2010 Annual Report
While democracy regressed in many parts of the world and the curbs on NGOs remain a real threat, 2010 has been a year in which civil society and democracy activist have demonstrated impressive levels of vitality and adaptability, and even made progress against authoritarian forces in forbidding circumstances.
2005 Annual Report
In 2005, the world’s attention was focused upon democratic advances in the Middle East, as Iraqis and Afghans risked their lives to participate in democratic processes once though unimaginable in their countries. But in every corner of the world there were remarkable individual , their stories virtually unknown, who were also advancing the principles of freedom, democracy, and human rights.