Democracy Playbook by Tech Tank

THE DEMOCRACY PLAYBOOK TECH TANK

THE TECHNOLOGY THINK TANK

Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................. 2 MEDIA OUTLETS.......................................... 4 SOCIAL MEDIA............................................. 8 ELECTION FINANCE.....................................14 ELECTION VOTERS......................................18 CIVIL SOCIETY..............................................24 ACTIVISM....................................................26 CHECKS ON GOVERNMENT.........................28 OPPOSITION PARTIES..................................30

Executive Summary

The Democracy Playbook sets forth strategies and actions that supporters of liberal democracy can implement to halt and reverse democratic backsliding and make democratic institutions work more effectively for citizens. We hope that diverse groups and individuals will find the synthesis herein useful as they design catered, context-specific strategies for contesting and resisting the illiberal toolkit.

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

MAGAZINE

MEDIA OUTLETS mergers occur. Net neutrality involves a lack of restrictions on content on the internet, however, with big businesses supporting campaigns financially they tend to have influence over political issues, which can translate into their mediums. These big businesses that also have control over internet usage or the airwaves could possibly make the content available biased from their political stand point or they could restrict usage for conflicting political views, therefore eliminating net neutrality.

Problem: Concentration of Media Outlets Ownership Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media. Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation, with many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very small number of firms.

Freedom of the press and editorial independence On the local end, reporters have often seen their stories refused or edited beyond recognition. An example would be the repeated refusal of networks to air â&#x20AC;&#x153;adsâ&#x20AC;? from anti-war advocates to liberal groups like MoveOn.org, or religious groups like the United Church of Christ, regardless of factual basis. Journalists and their reports may be directly sponsored by parties who are the subject of their journalism leading to reports which actually favor the sponsor, have that appearance, or are simply a repetition of the sponsorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; opinion.

As of 2020, the largest media conglomerates in terms of revenue rank Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, AT&T and ViacomCBS per Forbes. In nations described as authoritarian by most international think-tanks and NGOs, media ownership is generally something very close to the complete state control over information in direct or indirect ways. Risks for media integrity Media integrity is at risk when small number of companies and individuals control the media market. Media integrity refers to the ability of a media outlet to serve the public interest and democratic process, making it resilient to institutional corruption within the media system, economy of influence, conflicting dependence and political clientelism. Media integrity is especially endangered in the case when there are clientelist relations between the owners of the media and political centres of power. Such a situation enables excessive instrumentalisation of the media for particular political interests, which is subversive for the democratic role of the media.

Media pluralism The concentration of media ownership is commonly regarded as one of the crucial aspects reducing media pluralism. A high concentration of the media market increases the chances to reduce the plurality of political, cultural and social points of views. Problem: Revolving Door Politicians and media are supposed to have an adversarial relationship, whereby journalists are tasked with subjecting government to scrutiny. However the line between politics and journalism has become so blurred - with so much two-way traffic moving back and forth

Elimination of net neutrality Net neutrality is also at stake when media

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

MAGAZINE

MEDIA OUTLETS between the two. The flow of faces and names between government and â&#x20AC;&#x153;newsâ&#x20AC;? media has turned what was supposed to be a watchdog over the destructive power of the state into little more than a forum for political marketing and an extended battleground for factional fighting.

and cannot serve to promote democracy and therefore must be examined critically.[4] The concept, and a social movement promoting it, have grown as a response to the increased corporate domination of mass media and the perceived shrinking of the marketplace of ideas.

Solution: Pluralism in Media Ownership

The concept of a media democracy follows in response to the deregulation of broadcast markets and the concentration of mass media ownership. In the book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, authors Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky outline the propaganda model of media, which states that the private interests in control of media outlets will shape news and information before it is disseminated to the public through the use of five information filters.

Media privatization and the lessening of state dominance over media content has continued since 2012. In the Arab region, the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) counted 1,230 television stations broadcasting via Arab and international satellites, of which 133 were state-owned and 1,097 private. According to the ASBU Report, these numbers serve as evidence of a decline in the percentage of state channels and a rise in national private and foreign public stations targeting the Arab region. The reduction of direct government ownership over the whole media sector is commonly registered as a positive trend. Solution: Media Democracy Media democracy focuses on the empowerment of individual citizens and promotion democratic ideals through the spread of information. [2] Additionally, the media system itself should be democratic in its own construction [3] shying away from private ownership or intense regulation. Media democracy entails that media should be used to promote democracy[2] as well as the conviction that media should be democratic itself;[3] media ownership concentration is not democratic

Solution: Media Transparency Media transparency deals with the openness and accountability of the media and can be defined as a transparent exchange of information subsidies based on the ideas of newsworthiness. Media transparency is one of the biggest challenges of contemporary everyday media practices around the world as media outlets and journalists constantly experience pressures from advertisers, information sources, publishers, and other influential groups. Media transparency is a normative concept and is achieved when: 1) there are many competing sources of information; 2) the method of information delivery is known; and 3) funding of media production is disclosed and publicly available.

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

MAGAZINE

SOCIAL MEDIA Problem: Sensationalism Content farms sensationalize and repost content from media outlets.

Problem: Reputation Management Fake News oppo is written to damage an agency, entity, or person.

Similarly, clickbait stories and headlines earn advertising revenue from this activity. The relevance of fake news has increased in post-truth politics. For media outlets, the ability to attract viewers to their websites is necessary to generate online advertising revenue. Publishing a story with false content that attracts users benefits advertisers and improves ratings.

Conversely, Reputation managers can be hired to write fake news articles about them that show up high on Google searches, helping to bury real and less flattering news items. Problem: Truth Drowned Out Confirmation bias and social media algorithms used on Facebook and Twitter further advance the news, which is reposted. In order to increase the number of reposts, content farms use AI to automatically create fake accounts.

Various research reports have shown that triggering high-arousal emotions, like joy or fear, are key to viral distribution online. Indeed, according to by Sorbonne University

research 2016:

Eventually fake news has become so pervasive, that true new reporting is subsequently downed out.

“Articles with a large number of comments were found to evoke high-arousal emotions, such as anger and happiness, paired with low-dominance emotions where people felt less in control, such as fear. The New York Times articles that received the most comments in 2015 all featured emotionally charged, and often divisive, topics: Amazon’s stringent workplace policies, Kim Davis, a police officer charged with murder, the San Bernardino shootings, the Benghazi panel.”

In 2018, Maria Ressa, a Filipino-American journalist and cofounder of Rappler, a Jakarta-based investigative news website, told PBS Frontline about how the government in the Philippines had created a massive propaganda machine to spread misinformation on Facebook, drowning out factual reporting from Ressa and others on corruption and crimes perpetrated by the authoritarian regime of President Rodrigo Duterte. “It’s death by a thousand cuts,” she said. A version of that quote is now the title of a documentary by Filipino-American documentarian Ramona S. Diaz, premiering at Sundance. The film takes viewers behind the scenes with Ressa as she documents abuses of power and fights for the truth.

Problem: Gaslighting Gaslighting can be used to manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. This type of technique is used to shift or minimise blame. Australia’s 2020 bushfire crisis has led to what appears to be a deliberate misinformation campaign started by climate-change deniers claiming arson is the primary cause of the ongoing fires, despite months of drought and record high temperatures.

Fake news undermines serious media coverage and makes it more difficult for journalists to cover significant news stories. An analysis by BuzzFeed found that the top 20 fake news stories about the 2016 U.S. presidential election received more engagement on Facebook than the top 20 election stories from 19 major media outlets.

MAGAZINE

Anonymously-hosted fake news websites lacking known publishers have also been criticized, because they make it difficult to prosecute sources of fake news for libel.

through the media to influence a political debate, and ultimately, voters. These ads are designed by political consultants and political campaign staff.

Problem: Outsourced Fact Checking

Fake political ads spread misinformation and lies taking advantage of unknowing people.

Organizations like Facebook continue to rely on small, usually nonprofits, to vet content. Potentially false articles or videos are often passed to these groups with no background information on how or why they were flagged in the first place.

Although Twitter has chosen to block political ads and Google has chosen to limit the targeting of political ads, Facebook has decided not to do anything until the industry has been regulated. “Ultimately, we don’t think decisions about political ads should be made by private companies, which is why we are arguing for regulation that would apply across the industry,” Facebook’s Rob Leathern said in a blog post. “In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies.”

These efforts aren’t geared toward helping news organizations vet the heaps of content or leads they receive each day to help under-resourced reporters do better work. Rather, they help a multibillion-dollar company keep its own house clean in a post hoc fashion. Problem: Fake Videos

Problem: Failure to Punish Social Media Manipulators

“Deepfakes”, or fake videos , which use AI to put words in the mouth of public figures such as politicians. While Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of global policy management, said Facebook and its sister service Instagram would now ban all “misleading manipulated media” that had been “edited or synthesised” in ways that would be likely to “mislead” the average viewer. Facebook’s rules are, however, subject to a ‘newsworthiness exemption’, meaning that posts which would otherwise be removed may be left online if the “public interest” in keeping them up outweighs the “harm” they will cause.

Problem: Extremism & Hate Crime The first inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hate Crime warned that “fake” and misleading stories spread on social media were increasing hatred by “fanning the flames of intolerance” and driving support for online and offline attacks. “Online hate can contribute to the normalising of these extreme views, which in turn emboldens people to abuse and assault people on the street, on public transport, in shops,” it added.

According to Sir Nick Clegg, Facebook’s head of global affairs, a politicians’ speech is considered newsworthy by default, even if it breaks the rules. The policy would also not ban deepfakes that are judged by Facebook’s moderators to be “parody or satire”, and would not have affected the misleading video of Nancy Pelosi, since it had merely been edited deceptively

“If people feel they are not protected from hate crime by the authorities they may turn outside of the system for protection, bringing risks of insularity, vigilantism and vulnerability to radicalisation,”

Problem: Fake Political Ads In politics, campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

Christopher Steele, the ex-head of MI6’s Russia desk and the intelligence expert behind the so-called “Steele dossier” into Trump’s relationship with Russia, said that while the company had closed down, the failure to properly punish bad actors meant that the prospects for manipulation of the US election in 2020 will be even worse. “the result will be that while Cambridge Analytica may have been exposed and eventually shut down, other, even more sophisticated actors will have been emboldened to interfere in our elections and sow social divisions”.

MAGAZINE

the

Stop

Hate

group

said.

Solution: Sourcing Policy The secret to Wikipedia’s success – which earned it the title of the “good cop” of the internet this year from The Washington Post – stems precisely from its meticulous sourcing policy. Wikipedia not only requires that every claim have a verifiable source supporting it, it also has assembled a hierarchy of sources, which is one of the keys to its relative success in maintaining online accuracy. For example, a blog post is considered less dependable than a newspaper article, which is less credible than a peer-reviewed academic article. On Facebook and Twitter, all links look the same, but on Wikipedia – not all links have the same value. Solution: Fact Checking It is time for Facebook to take responsibility internally for fact-checking, rather than passing off the task of verifying or debunking news reports to other groups. Facebook and other social-media companies must also stop relying on fact-checks after the fact—that is, only after a false article has gone viral. These companies need to generate some kind of early warning system for computational propaganda. AI In April 2018 Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress: he was under the political microscope for the mishandling of user information during the 2016 election. In his two-part testimony he mentioned artificial intelligence more than 30 times, suggesting that AI was going to be the solution to the problem of digital disinformation by providing programs that would combat the sheer volume of computational propaganda. He predicted that in the next decade, AI would be the savior for the massive problems of scale that Facebook and others come up against when dealing with the global spread of junk content and manipulation. So is there a way we could use AI or automated bot technology to tackle the manipulation of public opinion online? Can we use AI to fight AI?

The Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University has built public tools that harness machine learning to detect bots by looking at 1,200 features to determine whether it’s more likely to be a human or a bot. And Facebook product manager Tessa Lyons said in a 2018 announcement that “Machine learning helps us identify duplicates of debunked stories. For example, a fact-checker in France debunked the claim that you can save a person having a stroke by using a needle to prick their finger and draw blood. This allowed us to identify over 20 domains and over 1,400 links spreading that same claim.” Solution: Social Media Algorithms Facebook’s social media algorithms should promote media which has passed sourcing and fact checks, over media which receives social confirmation. Solution: Critical Thinking The general identify fake

public must learn to news from real news.

The Game ‘Fake It ‘til You Make It’ helps people develop the skills to spot fake news. In the game, players are encouraged to create their own fake content whilst gradually learning about six common fake news tactics (impersonating people online, using emotional language, group polarisation, spread ing conspiracy theories, discrediting opponents, and trolling). In other words, the game isn’t about telling people what’s true and what’s not: individuals are being “inoculated” against online manipulation strategies rather than specific arguments. The News Integrity Initiative, is a global consortium focused on helping people make informed judgments about the news they read and share online. The initiative’s mission is to advance news literacy, to increase trust in journalism around the world and to better inform the public conversation. The initiative, which is administered by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, will fund applied research and projects, and convene meetings with industry experts.

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

MAGAZINE

Solution: Investigative Journalism Bellingcat is an investigative journalism website that specializes in fact-checking and open-source intelligence. It was founded by the British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014 and allows the general public to engage in investigative journalism. Solution: Denial Law Criminalise denial or minimization of genocides or crimes against humanity, as interpreted by the European Court The Belgian Holocaust denial law, passed on 23 March 1995, bans public Holocaust denial. Specifically, the law makes it illegal to publicly “deny, play down, justify or approve of the genocide committed by the Nazi German regime during the Second World War.” Prosecution is led by the Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities. The offense is punishable by imprisonment of up to one year and fines of up to €2,500. Solution: Deleting Fake Accounts and Suspending Groups/Pages On Dec 20th 2019, Facebook reportedly took down more than 600 accounts tied to The Epoch Times, a media outlet that spent $9.5 million on ads to spread proTrump conspiracy theories through the now-suspended pages and groups. Solution: Banning Fake Videos Ms Bickert said: “Manipulations can be made through simple technology like Photoshop or through sophisticated tools that use artificial intelligence or ‘deep learning’ techniques to create videos that distort reality – usually called ‘deepfakes.’ “While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases.” Ms Bickert said the new policy will apply to any video that has been modified by AI that “merges, replaces or superimposes content into a video” in a way that would “likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say.

That would catch misleading deepfakes, which work use AI to superimpose a real person’s face and mouth onto those of an actor, making them appear to speak the words that the actor does. Solution: Banning Political Ads Google made headlines because the company banned political advertising from its platforms ahead of the federal election, because they found the changes to be too onerous. Facebook and Twitter should follow suit. Solution: Blacklisting Media Outlets During the last months of 2019, the English-language Wikipedia community decided to ban a number of media outlets it deemed as unreliable – these included One America News, The Daily Caller and The Gateway Pundit whom were linked to the pro-Trump right – and the Epoch Times, a privately owned Chinese site, linked to the Falun Gong movement. The process of blacklisting media outlets is part of the online encyclopedia’s battle against fake news, and it accelerated rapidly last year, when almost 20 different websites were labeled “deprecated sources” whose reliability is questionable at best. Like all decisions at Wikipedia, the addition of a news outlet to the list is determined by a community vote. Blacklisting a source can involve using a filter that actually flags attempts to create a link to a banned site, a technical solution that flies in the face of the “anyone can edit” ethos that stands at the heart of the initiative. Wikipedia’s blacklist has existed for a number of years – the first website to be labeled a “deprecated source” was the British tabloid the Daily Mail in 2017. Another British tabloid, The Sun (published by Rupert Murdoch’s News Group), was added this past year, as were similar outlets in Iran and Venezuela. The same goes for the left-wing Facebook group Occupy Democrats, which was delisted as a valid source of information.

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

MAGAZINE

ELECTION FINANCE Problem: Corporate Interests Money can be used by bad actors to elevate special interests over those of the public and foster a lack of trust in the democratic system. Corporations legally donate money to the election campaigns of legislators, who in turn tend to vote in favor of the interests of those corporations. Non-profits like Maplight can graph the evidence that a representative voting in favor of a particular corporate-friendly law will receive 6 or 10 or 13 times the funding than someone who opposes the law. He cited studies that showed the ROI (return on investment) of lobbying to be 1,000%. 43% of Congress staff become lobbyists, lured by the promise of well-paying jobs working for corporate interests after leaving office. The differential in wages between a staff member and a lobbyist has escalated a hundred fold in the past 40 years. Problem: International Money Laundering Corruption by foreign public figures erodes public confidence in the judiciary and government, and undermines the rule of law. The UK, and especially the London property and financial markets, is a favoured destination to launder and invest the proceeds of international corruption and is estimated to cost every household in the UK £255 a year. The ease of opening UK companies means they are often used to enable corrupt activity. UK-registered companies pay bribes overseas in order to conduct business while companies based in large financial centres are used to disguise ownership and to conceal corrupt payments.

Bribery, corruption and sanctions evasion can also be facilitated by the abuse of legitimate processes and services. Accounting and legal professionals, and estate agents, can be criminally exploited – this is sometimes complicit, sometimes negligent, and sometimes unwitting – and this small minority of people can pose a very significant threat. They can act as intermediaries and use their skills, knowledge and abilities to draft documentation, disseminate funds, and allow highly complex structures to be created that move and store large amounts of criminal money and conceal ownership effectively. UK Finance Intelligence Unit Banks and other businesses use suspicious activity reports (SARs) to report cases of suspected money laundering and terrorism financing, to the United Kingdom Financial Intelligence Unit. The number of SARs submitted has doubled over the last ten years and continues to rise. This has culminated in over 470,000 reports in 2018-19; a record number of reports received in a single year. However, a significant number of these SARs are of low quality and can contain limited, or even no, useful intelligence. Time and money is wasted by reporters generating these reports and they hinder law enforcement’s ability to investigate and prosecute crime. Professor David Ormerod QC, Criminal Law Commissioner at the Law Commission said: “the reporting scheme isn’t working as well as it should. Enforcement agencies are struggling with a significant number of low-quality reports and criminals could be slipping through the net. Solution: Political Finance Reporting and Disclosure

MAGAZINE

This is the case across the world and applies to established and newer democracies alike. Information on political party and candidate income and expenditure is rarely published online in a searchable and user-friendly manner. Transparency can be greatly increased by introducing a system where political parties and candidates file reports online to the political finance oversight agency, with the data then publicly available in the form of a searchable database on the agency’s website. This data gives voters a more informed picture of where parties and candidates get their money from and how they spend it, as well as assisting the work of civil society organizations and journalists to hold them accountable. Currently, only a small number of countries have political finance online reporting and disclosure systems in place. International IDEA has collected their experiences and lessons learned from building their systems and consolidated it a Guide to help other oversight agencies interested in building similar systems. Europe The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), the Council of Europe’s anticorruption monitoring body with its Headquarters in Strasbourg (France), was established, in 1999, as an enlarged Partial Agreement by 17 Council of Europe member States. GRECO started to evaluate “Transparency of Party Funding” in Council of Europe member states the organization recommended to require political parties “to keep proper books and accounts ... to ensure that income, expenditure, assets and debts are accounted for in a comprehensive manner following a coherent format”, to consolidate such accounts to include local branches and provide for an easy access of the general public to the annual accounts of political parties. South Africa Since 2012, My Vote Counts (MVC) has fought for transparency in party funding.

The organisation is concerned that there is no legislation that compels political parties to publicly disclose private donations or that regulates their private funding. USA News outlets like Slate are conducting their own investigations into money in politics - exposing the “donor class”, the rarified group of Americans whose money and influence have overtaken the public interest. Solution: Donor Matching Systems To prevent undue influence of money in democratic politics, political parties should implement small donor matching systems or other mechanisms for the public financing of campaigns, create disclosure requirements for donations, and set limits on the amount of money that can be donated to campaigns. Solution: Subsidies Public subsidies are the major source of party funds in Sweden. At the national level they provide 80 to 90 per cent of the major parties’ annual revenue. Solution: Electoral finance reform Lawrence Lessig is an American academic, attorney, and political activist campaigning for electoral finance reform. His solution is an innovative kind of campaign finance reform. Give every voter a $50 campaign voucher. The $50 comes from the tax pool. It can be given to any candidate who accepts only money from the vouchers (and maybe a limit of an optional voluntary $100 per single voter). Thus all campaign money would come in very small amounts from The People. Lessig calculates that the total amount of money raised this public way would be 3 times the amount raised by private means in the last election cycles, and therefore more than adequate. But it would break the grip of corporate influence over what is voted up. The result would not be harmonious utopia, but the usual give-andtake compromises of politics -- which the US has not seen in decades. The issues that people cared about would return to the agenda. But the US has a fierce free-speech component not found elsewhere, and ironically, since spending money is viewed

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

One of the major challenges related to money in politics is the lack of transparency surrounding political party and electoral finance.

MAGAZINE

as a type of free speech, this complicates reform. He ended by saying that it would probably be a generational task. Solution: Sanctions Governments on both sides of the Atlantic must also develop a comprehensive deterrence strategy that will appropriately punish nations who interfere in democratic elections.

UK Law Commission On 18th June 2019 the UK Law Commission’s report, recommended the creation of an advisory board and a standardised form for the submission of SARs.

Solution: Money Laundering Reporting Financial Crimes Enforcement Network On 9th May 2019, Kenneth Blanco, director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a report on: Regulations to Certain Business Models Involving Convertible Virtual Currencies. In the report it explained how the Banking Secrecy Act, the cornerstone of U.S. AML law, applies to the virtual currency space. Between May and December 2019 Crypto companies have filed 7,100 Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) 11,000 crypto-related SARs have been filed with FinCEN. Twenty-one hundred filers directly referenced the guidance and “dozens” of new entities filed their first report. The high numbers indicate that virtual asset service providers (VASP) like crypto ATMs and exchanges are keeping a closer eye on potentially illicit activity moving across their network. “It is encouraging that CVC entities, dozens of whom had never filed a SAR report prior to the May advisory, are using the red flags and reporting suspicious activity back to us,” said Blanco. Venezuela in particular appears to be a hotbed of suspicious crypto activity, Blanco said. The Latin American country with its allegedly oil-backed token, the Petro, seems to have spawned an increasing number of unregistered money services business. Domestically, crypto companies are reporting more darknet-linked customer transactions, more scams, and more activities targeting the elderly, whose “limited knowledge” of cryptocurrency places them at higher risk.

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

MAGAZINE

ELECTION VOTERS Problem: Voter Apathy In politics, voter apathy is perceived apathy (lack of caring) among voters in an election. Voter apathy or lack of interest is often cited as a cause of low turnout among eligible voters in jurisdictions where voting is optional and the donkey vote where voting is compulsory. Poor voter turnout can also be attributable to voter intimidation and voter suppression. Problem: Voter Intimidation Voter intimidation is defined as behaviour that “intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce” in such a way that it prevents a voter from voting or from voting for their preferred candidates. In the US voter intimidation is most prevalent in Black and other communities of color and precincts with a large number of limited English proficiency voters. In recent years, the practice has spiked. Far more voters registered complaints of voter intimidation in 2016 than in 2012. In August 2016, even then-presidential candidate Donald Trump attempted to intimidate voters. At a rally, he pledged to dispatch police to polling locations to ensure voters didn’t cheat, and called for his supporters to do this same kind of “monitoring.” Problem: Voter Suppression In the United States each state has its own voting laws. In states with rules that encourage participation, voter turnout and engagement are higher. In states with complicated or discriminatory policies, voter turnout is significantly lower. Furthermore, over the last decade a

number of ‘voter suppression’ cases have been brought to light, whereby bad actors have been known to make legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible voters from exercising their right to vote through one of the following methods: Purging of voter rolls - compelled him to do so. Limitations on early and absentee voting Voting procedure disinformation Caging lists Criminalization of voter mistakes G e r r y m a n d e r i n g And Identification requirements e.g. allowing Handgun Licenses, but Not Student IDs as a form of ID For example in 2019, district court Judge Paul V. Malloy of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin removed 234,000 voters from the statewide rolls, in the latest case of voter suppression. It is not surprising, therefore, that the U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the developed world. According to the Pew Research Center, just 53.6 percent of adults participated in the 2012 election — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The 2014 midterm elections only pulled 36.4 percent of eligible voters, and a University of Wisconsin analysis of 144 American cities found an average voter turnout of just 20 percent for local offices — including mayors, judges, and commissioners. Problem: Inaccurate Voter Register Many countries face challenges in creating an accurate voter register. It is one of the most important activities that an electoral management body needs to conduct, but it is also one of the most complex and costly in terms of both time and resources. Problem: Voter Age is 18 “Around the world, we are seeing children and youth engage as social, political, and

MAGAZINE

Taft, the author of Rebel Girls and the new book The Kids Are in Charge: Activism and Power in Peru’s Movement of Working Children, spoke days before the Sept. 20 global, youth-led climate strike. She has spent more than a decade studying children’s rights and intergenerational activism. Problem: Zero Sum Thinking Zero Sum Thinking Zero-sum thinking perceives situations as zero-sum games, where one person’s gain would be another’s loss. Zero-sum thinking is captured by the saying “your gain is my loss” (or conversely, “your loss is my gain”). Rozycka-Tran et al. (2015) defined zero-sum thinking as: “A general belief system about the antagonistic nature of social relations, shared by people in a society or culture and based on the implicit assumption that a finite amount of goods exists in the world, in which one person’s winning makes others the losers, and vice versa [...] a relatively permanent and general conviction that social relations are like a zero-sum game. People who share this conviction believe that success, especially economic success, is possible only at the expense of other people’s failures.” (pps. 526–528). Zero-sum bias is a cognitive bias towards zero-sum thinking; it is people’s tendency to intuitively judge that a situation is zero-sum, even when this is not the case. This bias promotes zero-sum fallacies, false beliefs that situations are zerosum. Such fallacies can cause other false judgements and poor decisions. When individuals think that a situation is zero-sum, they will be more likely to act competitively (or less cooperatively) towards others, because they will see others as a competitive threat. For example, when students think that they are being graded on a curve—a grading scheme that makes the allocation of grades zero-sum—they will be less likely to provide assistance to a peer who is proximate in status to themselves,

because that peer’s gain could be their own loss. When individuals perceive that there is a zero-sum competition in society for resources like jobs, they will be less likely to hold pro-immigration attitudes (because immigrants would deplete the resource). Solution: Citizen Society Organisations There are a number of CSO’s who are fighting for - voter turnout, voter registration and voting method reform. Whilst fighting against - voter intimidation & suppression. Organisations include:‘Rock the vote’ (US) - is a nonpartisan nonprofit who have successfully fought for — and defended — voting rights and increased access to democracy for young people by partnering with Brands and Athletes. ‘Fair vote’ (US) - is a nonpartisan champion of electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice, and a representative democracy that works for all Americans. ‘American Civil Liberties Union’ (US) an organization aimed at realizing the promise of the Bill of Rights for all and expanding the reach of its guarantees. ‘Tech for UK’ (UK) - built a collection of tools to make voting easier Solutions: Tools for Voters A number of CSO’s have used tech to build tools to assist voters. Here are some examples: Best Electoral System Test (International IDEA) - The Best Electoral System Test (BEST) allows those involved in the debate on electoral system design to explore the characteristics of twelve common electoral systems in an interactive way. Users can set their priorities for 16 properties on a scale and immediately see a list of best matching electoral systems. Electoral Risk Management Tool (International IDEA) - The Electoral Risk Management Tool (ERMTool) is designed to empower people to ensure peaceful and credible elections. Intended users are electoral management bodies, security sector agencies, civil society and other state and non-state actors. The ERMTool aims to build the user’s capacity to understand, analyze, and mitigate electoral risks. Online Electoral Cycle (International IDEA) - The Online Electoral Cycle is an online, user-friendly, customizable cycle that illustrates the phases during an election and the period between two

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

economic actors, demonstrating their capacity to help make social change,” said Taft, an associate professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at UC Santa Cruz. “Adults make a lot of assumptions about children and what they’re capable of, and those assumptions are often quite false.”

MAGAZINE

elections and that covers the actions that should be taken by a wide array of actors throughout these phases. Interactive Overview of Combinations of Electoral Systems & Quota Types (International IDEA) UK Vote Smart (Tech for UK) - The essential guide to tactical voting in the 2019 Election, supercharge your vote for a brighter future. Vote for Policies (Tech for UK) Compare what each party is promising to do - for the issues you care about. Swap my Vote (Tech for UK) - Swap your vote with someone in a constituency where it could count for more. Student Voter (Tech for UK) - Students can choose to vote at their home address, or where they live at university or college. Choose wisely for more impact! Who Can I Vote For (Democracy Club) Find out about candidates in your area. Where Do I Vote? (Democracy Club) - Find your polling station Voting Counts - Downloadable resources to boost Voter Registration events. VoteBot - A chatbot assistant helping you vote for the causes you care about. Teachers for Turnout - Tools and resources for teachers to help their students register to vote. Brits Abroad - British, living abroad? Make sure you can vote, with this handy guide. We Vote - Plan to vote and get reminders. Who Targets Me - Browser extension for learning which political parties targets you based on your social media adverts. Proxy Vote Match - Match with people who need someone to act as their proxy to vote for them. VoteFlip - Last time 14 million people didn’t vote. If they had, it might have flipped the result. Network Vote - All the things you need to get the “unheard third” of voters out to vote on 12th December. Youth Vote UK - Run a youth voter registration drive in your area. TwittElection - Twitter lists of all candidates for each constituency. Everyone Vote - Politicaly neutral posters to encourage non-voters to register. Can I Vote? - It’s not just British citizens who can vote in UK elections. C a n i v o t e . o r g . u k Vote Early - Christmas Party? Stuck in work? Caught in the December rush?

Register To Vote - Use this service to register to vote or change your details. It usually takes about 5 minutes. Solution: Voter Incentivisation In 2002 the University College of London conducted an experiment to see if an incentive—in the form of a lottery—increase voter registration. This experiment was deployed to poorer members of society, habituated to certain kinds of non-desirable behaviours, such as smoking and whom education, persuasion, mentoring and information-based interventions failed to influence their desire to vote. However, rather than getting informed on the issues, what a cash incentive encourages is what political scientists have termed “low-information voting.” Ethicist and Georgetown professor of philosophy Jason Brennan thinks uninformed voting not only damages our democracy but is actively immoral.” As soon as you step into the voting booth, you acquire a duty to know what you’re doing,” writes Brennan in his book, The Ethics of Voting. “It’s fine to be ignorant, misinformed, or irrational about politics, so long as you don’t impose your political preferences upon others using the coercive power of government.” Solution: eVoting In 2005, Estonia became the first country in the world to hold nation-wide elections using this method, and in 2007, it made headlines as the first country to use i-Voting in parliamentary elections. Internet voting, or i-Voting, is a system that allows voters to cast their ballots from any internet-connected computer anywhere in the world. Completely unrelated to the electronic voting systems used elsewhere, which involve costly and problematic machinery, the Estonian solution is simple, elegant and secure. During a designated pre-voting period, the voter logs onto the system using an ID-card or Mobile-ID, and casts a ballot. The voter’s identity is removed from the ballot before it reaches the National Electoral Commission for counting, thereby ensuring anonymity. With any method of remote voting, including traditional postal ballots, the possibility of

MAGAZINE

In the case of i-Voting, the cumulative time saved in the last Estonian elections was 11,000 working days. Estonia have developed an e-Estonia Briefing Centre to show delegates around the world what is needed to accelerate digitizing, from policy making to overcoming challenges, and introduce you to the Estonian IT industry (which is responsible for leading the world in electronic ID to data privacy, cyber security and autonomous transport). Solution: Monitoring Elections The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) is an intergovernmental organization that supports sustainable democracy worldwide by tracking the extent to which elections for national, representative political office are free from irregularities, such as flaws and biases in the voter registration and campaign processes, voter intimidation. In their research they ask questions such as:Does the election management body (EMB) have autonomy from government to apply election laws and administrative rules impartially in national elections? Does the Election Management Body (EMB) have sufficient staff and resources to administer a well-run national election? In this national election, was there evidence of other intentional irregularities by incumbent and/or opposition parties, and/or vote fraud? In this national election, were opposition candidates/parties/campaign workers subjected to repression, intimidation, violence or harassment by the government, the ruling party or their agents? Taking all aspects of the pre-election period, election day and the post-election process into account, would you consider this national election to be free and fair? The chief executive offices and seats in the effective legislative body are filled by elections characterized by uncertainty, meaning that the elections are, in principle, sufficiently free to enable the opposition

to gain power if it were to attract sufficient support from the electorate. Solution: Lower Voting Age to 16 Young people have clearly shown that they are engaged in political, social and environmental issues that will affect their futures. Allowing young people the right to vote will enable them to have an active voice in the democratic process in the UK and have their concerns heard. On November 6th 2019 a UK petition was closed early due to the General Election, however should the Petition be reinstated, it should achieve the 10,000 voted required to get this issue on the national agenda. Solution: Cyber Security in General Election Information and communication technologies are increasingly prevalent in electoral management and democratic processes, even for countries without any form of electronic voting. These technologies offer numerous new opportunities, but also new threats. Cybersecurity is currently one of the greatest electoral challenges. It involves a broad range of actors, including electoral management bodies, cybersecurity expert bodies and security agencies. Many countries have found that interagency collaboration is essential for defending elections against digital threats. In recent years significant advances have been made in organizing such collaboration at the domestic and international levels. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance created a guide tracking how countries are making progress on improving cybersecurity in elections. Solution: Voter Turnout Database Voter turnout is one of the crucial indicators of how citizens participate in the governance of their country. Higher voter turnout is in most cases a sign of the vitality of democracy, while lower turnout is usually associated with voter apathy and mistrust of the political process. International IDEAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Voter Turnout Database contains the most comprehensive global

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

votes being forced or bought is a concern. Estoniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s solution was to allow voters to log on and vote as many times as they want during the pre-voting period. Since each vote cancels the last, a voter always has the option of changing his or her vote later.

MAGAZINE

collection of voter turnout statistics from presidential and parliamentary elections since 1945. This Codebook provides detailed of the variables and answer options in the Database. Solution: Electoral Risk Management Tool

guide of key concepts and considerations for all stakeholders involved in discussions about the application of biometrics in elections, both for voter registration before an election and for voter verification at polling stations on election day. Solution: International Obligations for Elections

Understanding and explaining outbreaks of election-related violence is a complex task; predicting whether forthcoming elections will turn violent, which factors may underlie or trigger violence, and what can be done to prevent violence is even more difficult. One way to address the problem is to empower those who have immediate responsibility to prevent and mitigate election-related violence, such as electoral management bodies, security sector agencies and other state and non-state agencies. The Electoral Risk Management Tool (ERM Tool) is designed to empower people to ensure peaceful and credible elections. The software aims to build the capacities of users to understand, analyse and mitigate electoral risks. Specifically, the ERM Tool can build usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; capacity to understand electoral risk factors; collect and analyse risk data; design prevention and mitigation strategies; and record the results of actions.

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) has produced tables of jurisprudence and checklists, which facilitate review of how far national legal frameworks comply with UN treaty provisions and jurisprudence on elections. Solution: Social Media to Increase Voter Turnout This International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) produced a guide intended to inform electoral management bodies (EMBs) about the ways in which social media can be used to increase the participation of the electorate, boost communication, engage all members of the community, and improve transparency and trust throughout the electoral cycle.

The software is accompanied by three Guides. The Internal Factors Guide is a support document to the ERM Tool. In conjunction with the External Factors Guide, it provides guidance to the users of the ERM Tool in identifying electoral risks in a given country and electoral context. Solution: Biometric Technology Many countries that face challenges in creating an accurate voter register are considering reforming their voter registration systems through the introduction of biometric technologies. The drive towards biometrics has been facilitated by its largely apolitical nature. Investing in high-tech solutions allows stakeholders to demonstrate their commitment to resolving electoral problems. At the same time, expectations on biometric solutions may be exaggerated. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance has produced a

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

MAGAZINE

CIVIL SOCIETY Solution: Direct Democracy

Problem: Funding Gap Civil society organisations (CSOs) play a key role in defending and supporting the poor, marginalised and disenfranchised; creating space for their voices to be heard, enabling collective action by them or on their behalf, and influencing government and others to be more responsive to their needs. In situations of fragility and conflict, CSOs are often the main and immediate provider of protection and services and can reach across divisions to build the possibility of a common future. At their best they can inspire and mobilise people from all sectors and walks of life to work together to find solutions to development challenges. However, in the current period the role of CSOs is increasingly contested, as more funding goes to the private sector, social enterprises and entrepreneurs. Solution: Measuring Impact The Department for International Development (dfid) wants to get the best possible value for every pound of taxpayer money must be matched with the best use of funding and policy levers to encourage positive change, and reward impact. This means that CSOs have to get better at demonstrating value for money. Dfid secretary, Justine Greening has argued that organisations like those working to prepare vulnerable people for disasters must develop better methods to measure preventative work such as training families and communities on what to do in emergencies. They need to clearly show the value of long-term benefits with stronger data and evidence to strengthen their business cases.

In recent years more and more countries have adopted new possibilities and channels for citizens to make their voices heard—even between election days. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance’s - Global Passport to Modern Direct Democracy offers basic recommendations on how to use initiatives, referendums and plebiscites. Solution: Petitions The UK Parliament petitions website (e-petitions) allows members of the public to create and support petitions for consideration by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although the UK Parliament’s Petitions Committee considers all petitions which receive 100,000 signatures or more, there is no automatic parliamentary debate of those that pass this threshold. The Government will respond to all petitions with more than 10,000 signatures. Solution: Crowdfund for public-interest law suits Trump administration is deluged with lawsuits, from challenges to the president’s conflicts of interest to multiple cases against his travel ban (currently suspended by order of a federal judge). One of those lawsuits has been brought by two Yemeni brothers whose case is being funded by CrowdJustice, a UK crowdfunding platform for lawsuits that launched its US operation this week. The platform is designed for publicinterest cases, making it easier for people to band together in legal fights. Individual contributions add up to cover legal fees, and CrowdJustice helps promote the issue online. The platform’s pitch is simple— justice should be accessible to anyone.

MAGAZINE

Problem: The Joker

The “Joker” movie tells the story man who lives with his mother a play the role of a clown for the res

Suffering from “pseudobulbar affec Joker hopes to become a famous to make people laugh. Howe constant rejection and humiliation, the immense corruption of the he lives in, change his life and turn him into a professional with a tendency to uncontrolla

He only triggers chaos without and sheds blood without trial. T of Gotham (his hometown), who of class distinctions and discrimi like the Joker, follow his lead and streets. The rioters rob shops, places on fire, commit crimes and

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

In reality, some protesters are begin the Joker mask, revealing their id with the character and a will “justify” their use of violence, a to achieve their aims in the peace

Problem: Police Retaliation to Civ Resistance

Hong Kong’s protests started in Ju plans to allow extradition to main Critics feared this could underm independence and endanger dissi 1997, Hong Kong was ruled by B colony but then returned to China “one country, two systems” arrange some autonomy, and its people m

Though the bill was withdrawn in demonstrators continued to de democracy. The police who have th

y of a poor and has to st of his life.

ct” disorder, s comedian ever, being , along with community d eventually l murderer able chaos.

any plans The people are victims ination just d take into set public d kill rulers.

nning to use dentification lingness to after failing eful protest.

vil

une against nland China. mine judicial idents. Until Britain as a a. Under the ement, it has more rights.

September emand full he important

MAGAZINE

ACTIVISM challenge of striking the right balance between enforcing the law and preventing a deterioration of public order, arresting more than 1,300 people and now alarmingly began deploying reckless and indiscriminate tactics, while arresting people at protests, as well as torture and other ill-treatment in detention, according to field investegations carried out by Amnesty International. Solution: Nonviolent Civil Resistance Civil resistance movements are formations of individuals engaged in particular kinds of collective tactics. We follow the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in defining civil resistance as “a way for people (often ordinary people with no special title, status, or privilege) to wield power without using or threatening physical violence. It consists of (a) acts of commission, in which people do things they’re not supposed to do, not expected to do, or forbidden from doing; (b) acts of omission, in which people don’t do things that they’re supposed to do, expected to do, or required to do; or (c) a combination of both acts of commission and omission.”99 Acts of commission include demonstrations, petitions, and civil disobedience. Acts of omission include boycotts, strikes, and divestment. Despite relying on nonviolent tactics and operating without access to standard levers of government control, civil society groups and civil resistance movements are able to wield great influence, because ultimately, power derives from the consent of the governed. As Gene Sharp argues, would-be authoritarians may use lies, economic inducements, and a variety of coercive tools to obtain that consent, but without it, they are powerless. Indeed, in order to carry out policy initiatives and government functions, modern would-be authoritarians are dependent on a wide variety of other people and organizations, many of whom exist outside the government. Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam note that modern

nation-states exist within “strategic action fields,” units of collective action that include both state and non- state actors. If enough of those actors withdraw their consent, the state can lose its basis of authority and capacity to rule. Citizens and organizations can do their part by withdrawing their consent and applying pressure on other actors to do the same. Eventually, pillars of authoritarian power start to show cracks, and a nonviolent group can coerce valuable, or even transformative, concessions from the government. In other words, everyday citizens, working together, can turn the entire system upside-down. Several scholars have substanti- ated this idea empirically. Indeed, for advocates of democracy, among the most encouraging academic findings from the past decade is that civil resistance works. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan argue that nonviolent resistance can be an effective means of promoting democratic consolidation and transition, even in especially challenging scenarios.106 Moreover, after analyzing violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006, the authors find that nonviolent groups were more than twice as likely to achieve a full or partial success as their violent coun- terparts. Other work by Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman supports this finding. In fact, they argue that a public’s capacity to engage in collective action to hold leaders accountable is among the most important predictors of democracy. Major nonviolent resistance advocates include Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, Te Whiti o Rongomai, Tohu Kākahi, Leo Tolstoy, Alice Paul, Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, James Bevel, Václav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, Lech Wałęsa, Gene Sharp, Nelson Mandela, and many others.

MAGAZINE

Problem: Lack of Transprency an Consultation

On January 10th 2019 President Trum a drone strike killing of Gen Qasem Iran’s national hero, without the Congress, acting unconstitutiona the The War Powers Resolution a intended to check the U.S. presiden commit the United States to an arm without the consent of the U.S.

“The need for advance consul transparency with Congress wa the Constitution for a reason the lack of advanced consult transparency with Congress can hasty and ill-considered decisions

Solution: Identify Improvements T Assessment

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

The Institute of Democratic and Assistance, has developed a “Ou Democracy” assessment methodolo citizens assess the quality of their and define priority areas for democratic reform. The assessment enable citizens to periodically m health of their democracy and can co strengthening national and local go responsiveness. Key questions

Effective Parliament

The Effective Parliament attribut the extent to which the leg capable of overseeing the Legislature questions officials in In practice, does the legislature question executive branch Executive oversight: If executive bra were engaged in unconstitutional unethical activity, how likely is it t other than the legislature, such as a general, general prosecutor or om would question or investigate issue an unfavourable decision

MAGAZINE

CHECKS ON GOVERNMENT

mp launched m Soleimani, consent of ally against federal law nt’s power to med conflict . Congress.

ltation and as put in – because tation and n lead to s,” he said.

Through

d Electoral ur State of ogy to helps democracy policy and frameworks monitor the ontribute to overnments’ s include:-

te denotes gislature is executive. n practice: re routinely officials? anch officials l, illegal or that a body comptroller mbudsman, them and or report?

Legislature investigates in practice: If the executive were engaged in unconstitutional, illegal or unethical activity, how likely is it that a legislative body (perhaps a whole chamber, perhaps a committee, whether aligned with government or opposition) would conduct an investigation that would result in a decision or report that is unfavourable to the executive? Legislature opposition parties: Are opposition parties (those not in the ruling party or coalition) able to exercise oversight and investigatory functions against the wishes of the governing party or coalition? Executive constraints: The extent of institutionalized constraints on the decisionmaking powers of chief executives, whether individuals or collectivities. Judicial Independence The Judicial Independence attribute denotes the extent to which the courts are not subject to undue influence from the other branches of government, especially the executive. High Court independence: When the High Court in the judicial system is ruling in cases that are salient to the government, how often would you say that it makes decisions that merely reflect government wishes regardless of its sincere view of the legal record? Lower court independence: When judges not on the High Court are ruling in cases that are salient to the government, how often would you say that their decisions merely reflect government wishes regardless of their sincere view of the legal record? Compliance with High Court: How often would you say the government complies with important decisions of the High Court with which it disagrees? Compliance with judiciary: How often would you say the government complies with important decisions by other courts with which it disagrees? Law and Order: To what extent is the legal system strong and impartial and to what degree is there popular observance of the law?

Media Integrity The Media Integrity attribute denotes the extent to which the media landscape offers diverse and critical coverage of political issues. Print/broadcast media critical: Of the major print and broadcast media outlets, how many routinely criticize the government? Print/broadcast media perspectives: Do the major print and broadcast media represent a wide range of political perspectives? Media bias: Is there media bias against opposition parties or candidates? Media corrupt: Do journalists, publishers or broadcasters accept payments in exchange for altering news coverage? Media freedom: Is criticism of government and government officials a common and normal part of the political dialogue in the mediated public sphere? Political Corruption Assessment Methodology IntegriTAS is a digital system that assesses the threat of political corruption linked to organized crime. Drawing on data regarding democratic vulnerabilities and the presence of organized crime in a country or territory, the system increases your capacity to systematize information, monitor threats and formulate evidencebased prevention and mitigation measures.

MAGAZINE

OPPOSITION PARTIES Solution: Policy Positioning Political parties need to take positions on public issues and communicate these positions publicly. In this way, voters can see what the parties stand for and choose which party to vote for. In many emerging democracies, political parties are based around the personality of a leader rather than a long-term identity based on policies. Parties often lack the skills and experience to debate policy positions and mobilize voters around their ideas. For this reason, International IDEA, NIMD and ProDemos have created a Policy Positioning Tool (PPT) for political parties. The tool helps parties develop and promote their individual policy positions through an online voting application. As the level of internet access in emerging democracies increases, online applications can be a very attractive way for political parties to reach voters. The guide describes the technical and real-world steps involved in assisting political parties in developing and using a PPT. It includes a case study on the use of the tool by political parties in Lima, Peru, and is a must-read for practitioners seeking to help political parties become more effective in their internal and external communication.

Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet

Solution: Dialogue Training Conflict and polarized relations between political parties can block development. Trust and cooperation between political parties is imperative to allow for reforms that are needed for peace, democracy and development to be achieved and sustained. Interparty dialogue platforms exist in many shapes and forms, including both formal (established) and informal mechanisms. Such platforms could be set up to either achieve a specific outcome (e.g. agreement on a new constitution) or with a broader objective of nurturing the spirit of tolerance and peaceful competition.