This report offers an extensive review of academic literature on democracy, focusing on the challenges facing liberal democracy, its resilience, and emerging democratic innovations. Drawing on political theory, empirical research, and recent scholarly debates, it analyzes democratic functioning, its crises, and potential pathways for revitalization in the 21st century.

Author: Andrea Gaiba | Florian Hoppe | Jonathan Moskovic | Kalypso Nicolaidis | Silvia Pellegri | Edit Zgut-Przybylska

The aim of this preliminary study is to examine the attitudes of Europeans toward democracy. However, in order to fully comprehend attitudes toward democracy, it is essential to analyze perspectives on its alternatives. Such an analysis is also included in this study. We distinguish between young people, those in middle age, and the elderly to account for intergenerational differences in attitudes towards democracy and its alternatives. While our primary focus is on Europeans as a whole, we also pay particular attention to regional variations across Europe. Where necessary, we strive to highlight country-specific characteristics, shedding light on the unique features of individual societies.

Author: Radosław Markowski | Piotr Zagórski

Democratic Innovations (DIs) have become a powerful lever for practical implementation and political impact. But how much difference do they make? To avoid DI’s becoming an empty buzzword, it is important to assess how widespread they are and what difference they effectively make. Research itself can be biased and over-estimate their impact. Or on the contrary, it can under-estimate much of what is happening under the radar. The emergence of specific practices in determined geographical areas or democratic regimes, is to be understood as context dependent.

We consider this to be a conversation about the various ‘sciences of democracies’ (Gagnon et al, 2025), i.e. the historiography of successful models. This is about how to bust open the black box of democracy and, adjacently, democratic innovations. It allows not only for interdisciplinary thinking, but also for competing intergenerational methodologies to emerge. As this report focuses on emerging practices in democratic innovations with an eye to intergenerational dialogue and systems-thinking, we imbue this ethos in our scoping efforts. In this report, our modest aim is to contribute to a scanning of the field with an eye to the epistemological questions raised above.

Author: Andrea Gaiba | Florian Hoppe | Jonathan Moskovic | Kalypso Nicolaidis | Silvia Pellegri | Edit Zgut-Przybylska

This report includes the results of horizon scanning research that was conducted in two parallel strands. One strand used traditional desk research methods for scanning relevant literature, news items, and cultural expressions for trends and signals of emergent change. From this strand of research, 26 context factors were identified and classified according to the STEEPLE framework for social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal, and ethical changes that may have an important impact on the development of democracy. For each factor, relevant literature and outlines of potential impacts and future trajectories are provided as inputs for scenario co-creation processes.

Author: Aaron B. Rosa | Max Priebe | Olga Iudina | Renata Mandzhieva | Masafumi Nishi | Elisa Zuccarelli

The Youth Decide 2040 project is funded by the EU Horizon Europe program and is designed to foster the co-creation of scenarios outlining preferred futures for EU democracy. These scenarios should demonstrate how democracy might evolve in a desirable manner – taking advantage of emergent opportunities that a changing world presents while remaining resilient to threats and challenges. The project’s second work package (WP2) was conceived of as a phase of the project to design and test a scenario co-creation workflow. The workflow’s primary purpose would be to help European youth articulate and visualise visions of desirable futures for European democracy in the year 2040. This workflow aims to promote inclusivity, diversity of perspectives and experiences, procedural transparency and trust building between the participants, the project, and ultimately the European Commission. This deliverable was written to track key moments and decisions across the workflow design process, so that other groups may learn and adapt from the lessons we have gathered along the way. 

Author: Christophe Gouache | François Jégou | Max Priebe | Aaron B. Rosa