Research at ISID

Research at the ISID is intended to contribute directly to understanding the foundations of democratic governance. To an unprecedented degree, achieving democratic governance where it does not exist and improving its quality where it does have become dominant goals at all levels, from the local to the global. Yet it is not clear whether there is just one form of democratic rule, or if there is not, what qualities all democracies must share. For many new democracies, there is also a growing concern over the apparent inability of elected governments to effectively respond to citizens’ most urgent needs. However valued democracy may be in the abstract, the perceived ineffectiveness of actual democratic governments threatens to lead people to question its relevance to the most pressing issues of the day. This larger question, in turn, will be approached in terms of three distinct axes or research clusters.