Pillar III: Policy Recommendations

Recommendation #7: Establish a new entity of leading democracies.

• Democratic governments should establish a new coordinating entity for advancing democracy. A new coordinating mechanism, established through the G7 or a new coalition of democracies, could spearhead a campaign to empower democratic movements around the world. This should include moral, legal, and financial assistance to people who are on the ground working to advance democracy and under the threat of retribution by authoritarian regimes or their local proxies. The new entity would also act as an active repository of research and analysis to identify targets for sanctions, and to harmonize their implementation.

Recommendation #8: Establish a mechanism to hold accountable regime officials involved in the suppression of democracy.

• Democratic governments should establish an internal mechanism to investigate and document unlawful or illegitimate actions taken by officials in authoritarian regimes that violently repress civil resistance movements. Such a mechanism can be housed within the justice ministries or investigative bureaus of these governments.

• Democracies should join together within a multilateral framework to hold accountable such officials.

Recommendation #9: Assign defense agencies to take a more active role in democracy support.

• Democratic governments should assign their respective departments or ministries of defense with taking a more active role in democracy support. Defense officials and military officers from democracies should seek to influence their counterparts in autocratic countries to support democratic change and strengthening in their own countries. When authoritarians crack down on movements, military and defense officials in democratic governments should redouble such efforts.

Recommendation #10: Develop a systematic framework with escalating responses to deter violent repression.

• The United States should establish a government-wide working group to develop a tiered framework of escalating responses to violent repression. The United States should work with leading democracies to build a framework for collective action centered around enforcement of this tiered approach.

• Other leading demo cracies should establish a similar mechanism , and ensure that these efforts are coordinated.

Recommendation #11: Scale up funding to counter foreign malign influence.

• The United States should scale up funding dedicated to countering foreign malign influence in third countries . Funding should center on increasing the resilience of governments and civil society against attempts by authoritarian governments such as the PRC and the Russian government—the two most powerful actors opposed to democracy worldwide—to erode democracy and coopt elites.