Making Democracy Network - International Network

The Making Democracy International Research Network has developed from a strong collaboration between international partners with a mutual interest in critically exploring contemporary practices and concepts of ‘making democracies’ on the basis of analyses of democratic practices and thought in democracy’s past and present, and with an eye to possible democratic futures. Against the prevalent focus on western models of democracy, there is a particular commitment to focus on North African, Middle Eastern and East European visions, practices and experiences of democracy and encourage a wider global and localised understanding of the nature of democratic thought, practice and experience.  Against the focus on systems, structures and models, there is a particular commitment to agency and practices in order to better understand critical tensions and contradictions in democracy making. The focus of the network is to focus its attentions on tensions and tendencies, continuities and ruptures, contradictions and moments and events of clarity to better under diverse discourses of democracy and through that understanding promote the making of better and reflexive democracies. Thus we are committed to examining the inter-relations and contestations both between varieties of practice and between practices and their theorisations.

Making Democracy website: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cappe/making-democracy-network