For Democracy, Against Authoritarianism

6 December

The pivotal event of the IYTT year is now behind us since a couple of weeks. During 21-24 November, 23 young democracy innovators from 14 countries gathered for the yearly International Youth Think Tank conference at Visual Arena Lindholmen in Gothenburg. The ideas from the conference was presented at the inaugural Gothenburg Democracy Talk, at The Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law. They have also been published in a preliminary conference report entitled For Democracy and Against Authoritarianism: Empowerment and Inclusion Through Radical Change. Brief overviews of the themes and tangible proposals are also available in the conference proceedings.

Conference participants gathered at the concluding seminar: Front row.: Luca Guidoboni, Anita Sammarini, Joseph Earnshaw, Sofia Marini, Federica Baggio och Alice Smith (back turned). Middle row.: Wiktoria Morawska, Nathan Collins, Rabia Turnbull, Shu Yu Lim, Alina Arslanova, James Mottram, Silvia Papic (back turned) och Olle Hansen. Back row: Anastasia Hansen, Benedikt Schuegraf, Vinkha Adinda Khairunnisa och Jonathan Ziener. Photography: Leon Toshach

The participants identified a multitude of challenges to the open society, among them, lack of empathy, a sense of apathy and polarization among citizens, as well as political and economic inequalities between groups in society. To address these challenges, the conference produced no less than 11 distinct proposals for change, directed at the democratic leaders. The proposals included local support groups to battle mental health issues and mandatory civil service to build community engagement and solidarity, but also, a citizens’ “council for the future” to address short-termism in politics and a new model for the measurment of economic progress.

Though many of the proposals address large and complex societal issues, they are very much informed by a concern for the well-being of the individual. This sentiment was evident during the conference proceedings, which were characterized by respect and sympathy, even when opinions were strong and forceful on an intellectual level.

Conference proceedings were characterized by love and respect. Here expressed between Joe Earnshaw and James Mottram. Photography: Leon Toshach

Over the four days of the conference, the participants attended inspirational lectures by such luminaries as the director of International IDEA, Kevin Casas-Zamora, who, in no uncertain terms, described the dire outlook for democracy worldwide. The bulk of the proceedings, however, were hard work on the part of the participants, in the brainstorming, researching and development of proposals.

The proposals from the IYC2022 conference will be included in the IYTT Handbook and one or more proposals will be further developed through research and dialogue – by way of the IYTT Bottom-Up Policy Advise Loop – into full fledged Policy Briefs to be presented in various contexts over the coming years.