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Improving Democracy through Citizens’ Participation

Results of the ECoD Citizens’ Jury “State of Democracy” pilot survey


In November 2022, ECoD founder Helfried Carl and Stefan Sindelar presented the results of our Citizens‘ Jury pilot study about the “State of Democracy” in Europe at the Council of Europe’s World Forum for Democracy’s session “Youth to the rescue“. 

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The survey shows that most participants have a critical point of view when assessing the democratic situation in their country of residence. The majority sees democracy weakening, not strengthening. Significantly, male respondents show more scepticism than women herein, while women appear more critical not about democracy as such, but about elected politicians.

In the ranking of the most important factors of a well-functioning democracy, our respondents have preferred the following three: 

 1. Freedom of speech and human rights,

 2. Stable democratic institutions

 3. Fair legal system

A different kind of democracy was mostly wished for by the 18-25 year olds, and least among the 46-55 year olds. When it comes to concrete changes, a clear majority stands for more civic participation, a third for more direct democracy.

ECoD Citizen Jurors have a clear interest in turning the tide on democracy decline and being engaged in more participatory forms of democracy. The worrying state of democracy today thus may open a window of opportunity for more citizen participation to strengthen deliberative democracy in the future. ECoD aims to meet these citizens’ needs and to contribute to bridging the gap between politicians, political professionals and citizens.

Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić was most interested in your answers during our fruitful exchange on current challenges in Europe and future collaborations for European Capital of Democracy and other projects.

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 Please find the results of our survey on the State of Democracy in Europe here: 

> DOWNLOAD FULL SURVEY RESULTS

> DOWNLOAD SUMMARY (FLYER)

> DOWNLOAD PRESENTATION

Debating Europe’s focus group report can be found here.

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