Despite widespread claims that parliamentary systems with an indirectly elected president produce better outcomes for democratic governance, constitutional reform to move away from a directly elected president to an indirectly elected president is extremely rare.
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Armenia, Georgia and Moldova continue to strengthen their democratic systems. Achievements, albeit with many challenges, include improvements to the conduct of elections, increasing the transparency and accountability of government institutions, and maintaining an open civic space for citizens and media to openly debate, question, or challenge their governments.
Political parties are the centrepiece of political representation in democratic systems.
Post-conflict democratization has always been regarded as an ordeal, and democracy-building in the South Caucasus countries is no exception.
The countries of the region—Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia—are telling examples of the fact that elections are insufficient for the establishment of democracy.
The State of Local Democracy (SoLD) assessment framework is designed to facilitate a citizen-led and -owned approach to assessing the quality of democracy at the local level.
It is a practical resource for citizens to conduct self-assessments of democratic life in their locality, identify democratic strengths and weaknesses, and translate these into reform agendas for further broadening and deepening of their local democracies.
An effective electoral justice system is a key element in the unfolding of a free, fair and genuine democratic process.
Without a system to mitigate and manage inequality or perceptions of inequality, even the best management of an electoral process may lead to mistrust in the legitimacy of the elected government.
International IDEA and the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD) organized a conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2005 on constitutional and political reform in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was dedicated to the exchange of information about the reform process in the three South Caucasus countries and the prospects for their European integration.
This 2005 edition of Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers covers women’s access to the legislature in three steps.
These essays tell the story of elections that took place in 2003 in the three countries of the South Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, seen through the eyes of nine regional participants and commentators.
The authors therefore write with the immediacy and the vibrancy that comes with close engagement, and sometimes take strong judgments based on their individual standpoints as the processes unfolded.