More and more political communities – all levels, from the local to the regional, national and transnational – are adopting citizens’ rights to make decisions directly via tools such as initiatives and referenda. The Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy was launched in 2008 to better understand this extraordinary development in democracy. The Forum, the first conference on citizens’ democratic rights worldwide, has taken place eight times in the last ten years, on five continents. And it has spawned a global network of scholars, journalists, and government and political practitioners that work to strengthen global knowledge about direct democracy and improve the procedures and practices of citizens’ rights.

The goal is to bring together people with different experiences and backgrounds, so as to give activists and organisations the opportunity to share their insights and connect with others working on the same issues.

The Forum is coordinated by an international consortium under the leadership of Democracy International and the Swiss Democracy Foundation. The conference is jointly chaired by the two founders of the Forum, the California journalist Joe Mathews and the Swedish-Swiss journalist Bruno Kaufmann. The Global Forum is always co-organised by a local organising committee in the host city. Each Forum ends with a final declaration drawn up and adopted by the participants, which summarises the content of the conference and defines proposals for further cooperation.

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