Areas of Expertise

Electoral Processes

The design and conduct of elections and referendums are vital to democratic development and are not mere technical events. International IDEA will keep leading the policy shift from event-driven to process-driven electoral support.

Political Parties

Political parties are the essential mechanisms through which the preferences and desires of citizens can be articulated and presented in legislatures and government. However, regard for political parties is almost universally low. International IDEA works to strengthen political parties as actors of democratization.

Constitution Building

Constitutions form the core agreement between the state and the citizen. Designing a constitution can lay the foundations for peace and development or can exacerbate existing conflict or plant seeds of conflict. International IDEA looks at why a constitution is much more than just a piece of paper.

Democracy and Gender

While women throughout the world face obstacles to their participation in politics, gender often remains an “add-on” to the democracy-building agenda. International IDEA identifies methods that governments can use to advance equality between women and men in politics.

State of Democracy

The State of Democracy assessment methodology (SoD) is a tool intended for use by citizens to assess the quality of their democracy, and define priority areas for policy and democratic reform. The network website includes an interactive version of the Democracy Assessment Framework, a collection of Assessments conducted around the world, the home of the Expert Network, as well as interviews, related publications, links and an Ask the Expert feature.

Democracy and Conflict

International IDEA seeks to strengthen the ‘conflict management’ capa­city of democratic institutions and processes and to reduce the potential for violent confrontation by including peace building and conflict prevention as objectives of all of its programme activities.