Global Issues

Democracy

How can we strengthen democracy in Germany and Europe?

The Situation

Democracy in Germany, Europe, and all across the globe is facing major challenges. Trust in institutions and processes is dwindling, and many citizens find their expectations of participation and justice are not being met. This feeling of being underrepresented in political discourse and processes can undermine the legitimacy of democracy, as well as intensify a tendency toward division and populism, challenging the very foundations of our coexistence.

The Goal

We advocate for viable democracy and rule of law in Germany and Europe, which enjoy legitimacy and the critical trust of their citizens. The cornerstone to achieve this is a firmly embedded, lived experience of a culture of democracy – both online and in real life – and politically educated citizens who are capable of discerning thought and taking action, citizens who put democracy into practice as they actively participate and demand inclusion.

Our Strategy

We encourage people to acquire the skills needed to maintain a healthy democracy, a constructive culture of debate, as well as political and societal inclusion. We also strengthen innovative civic participation formats in order to complement representative democracy, meaning more people regard themselves as shapers of political processes. In doing so, we focus on the working age population and center our involvement on Germany’s shared border regions with its neighbors.

News

Common Ground – Shaping Regions Across Borders

“It’s up to us to give people a voice”

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Robert Bosch Stiftung - Privacy Statement

Common Ground: Claudia Chwalisz, Innovative Citizen Participation Lead at OECD in Paris

Inaugural Event in Berlin

Common Ground – Shaping Development across Borders

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Impulse

A Toast to Democracy!

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Publication

Itʼs Complicated. People and Their Democracy in Germany, France, Britain, Poland, and the United Sta…

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Interview

What Is the Future of Democracy?

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Fighting Hate Speech Online: How Companies Like ALBA Take Up a Stance

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Discover our projects

Democracy

Common Ground: Shaping Regions Across Borders

With Common Ground, we promote the cross-border participation of the population in shaping and developing their border region. In the long-term,...

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Democracy

It’s Complicated.

People and their democracy in Germany, France, Britain, Poland, and the United States. This representative study puts attitudes toward democracy in the five countries under the microscope.

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Democracy

The Hub for Democratic Culture

We support the development of a decentralized platform of stakeholders from politics, civil society, media, business, and academia. The goal is to...

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Democracy

Citizens’ Assembly on “Germany’s Role in the World”

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Democracy

Business Council for Democracy #BC4D

We promote new alliances to protect democracy in the digital age. BC4D provides services that teach people in a professional context to recognize...

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Democracy

Strong Teachers – Strong Students

We support vocational teachers in dealing with right wing extremism amoung their pupils. Through the teachers, the pupils are emboldened to reflect...

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Democracy

NETTZ

Hate speech on the internet has regrettably become an increasingly pressing social issue. The NETTZ network aims to confront the current trend by supporting moral courage on digital media as well as cultivating a positive...

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Democracy

worldlab

The worldlab project brings together young people in preparatory and regular classes of vocational and general education schools to discuss shared values.

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Democracy

VOTO – Making Voting Simple

VOTO is a digital voting aid used in local elections that helps increase young voter turnout. It playfully provides information about parties and...

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Democracy

The Consul Project

The award-winning open-source platform for citizen participation “Consul” ensures open, transparent, and democratic governance.

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Democracy

The Shape of Us

This innovative hands-on project brings together virtual reality (VR) with political education and questions of climate change.

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Democracy, Inequality

Wellbeing Ecomomy Alliance

Co-designing economic policies to address multiple interlinked crises.

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Democracy

Exploring Worldwide Democratic Innovations

We explore emerging innovations in democratic participation around the world through research, with a view to proposing recommendations for...

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Democracy

“Crisis-Dialogue-Future” Competence Center

Together with the Competence Center, we use dialogue and participation to support municipalities in addressing conflicts and crises on the ground.

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Our focus

Competencies for democratic culture

In complex and pluralistic societies, knowing how a political system and its institutions work is not sufficient. If citizens want to participate both politically and socially, they need the right competencies to engage with a constructive culture of debate, both on and offline, as well as the ability to tolerate differences, change their perspectives, compromise, and think critically. We advocate for low-threshold and real-life teaching of the skills necessary to maintain a healthy democracy and focus on finding innovative formats and unusual places to this end.  

Citizen Participation

Involving citizens in political decision-making processes can increase their trust in politics and institutions as well as their sense of satisfaction with democracy. Strong participation formats achieve notably better qualitative results, raise acceptance among the population, and, alongside representative democracy, bring about broader legitimacy. We strengthen innovative and inclusive formats for civic participation that can be linked into the political sphere. We aim to target those people who have so far felt ignored by traditional approaches. Of particular importance are transnational participation processes in Germany’s border regions with its neighbors.

Do you have a project idea you would like to submit to us?

We are pleased about your interest in working with us. As a nonprofit foundation, we have limited funds at our disposal, which is why we cannot support every project idea submitted to us. You will in any case hear back from our team within four weeks regarding our decision on your project idea.

  • We are focusing our funding on projects that aim to reach out to people in their working age. For this reason we cannot fund projects that target mainly children and youngsters.
  • We can only support individuals within the context of project-specific calls for submissions. This also applies to individual PhD projects or other scholarships. Please check our current open calls to see whether there is anything suitable for you. 
  • Humanitarian aid is an important approach to relieving distress in acute emergency situations and requires special expertise. However, our strategic focus is on the overall configuration of the immigration society. Therefore, we ask you not to submit requests related to acute emergency aid.
  • Unfortunately, we are not able to assume the costs for purchase of materials or infrastructure projects.

Contact person

Jacqueline Sachse
Team Assistant
Phone+49 711 46084-490
e-mail to Jacqueline Sachse

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