2026 Anniversary Conference
10 Years Swiss Democracy Foundation – and the Future of Democracy Promotion
For ten years now, the Swiss Democracy Foundation has been officially working in Switzerland and around the world to strengthen (direct) democratic structures, citizens' rights, and civil society, thereby contributing to Switzerland's constitutional mandate (as per Art. 54, para. 2). We celebrated this milestone in February 2026 with an event at the historic Lucerne City Hall. With contributions from experts in the academic, political and diplomatic fields, we discussed the future of international democracy promotion.
In her welcome address, Mirjam Fries, President of the Lucerne City Council, highlighted the challenges facing local politics in Lucerne: polarization, the accelerating pace of decision-making processes, real-time communication via social media, and increasingly complex political issues. At the same time, however, she emphasized the strengths of the Swiss political culture, citing an established culture of debate and a focus on dialogue, alliances, and compromise. Her apt main point: "Democracy is dynamic. It thrives on the fact that majorities can change and that elections actually make a difference. [...] Democracy is an ongoing task."
From left: Zoltan Tibor Pallinger, Dagmar Schmidt Tartagli, Nadja Binder Braun, Andreas Glaser, Bruno Kaufmann, Adrian Schmid.
Ambassador Dagmar Schmidt Tartagli, Head of Human Rights, Democracy and humanitarian Diplomacy at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), reflected in her remarks on the role of official Switzerland in international democracy promotion on the evolution of perception of democracy from a "natural endpoint of political development" in the 1990s to the current crisis of democracy and the pressure from autocratic systems. She introduced the Federal Government's Guidelines on democracy 2025–28 and highlighted their focus on resilience and the strengthening of existing democratic structures, on intact diplomatic structures, and on the importance of like-minded democracy alliances on an equal level. She also pointed out the central role of an active and strengthened civil society for networked democracy promotion at all levels and concluded by appealing to everyone: "Democracy must be lived and practiced. It is a shared responsibility that concerns us all, and we must all commit to it."
In a panel discussion, we then addressed teh following four questions with Nadja Binder Braun, Professor of Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Basel; Zoltan Tibor Pallinger, Professor of Political Science and Rector at the Andrassy University in Budapest; and Andreas Glaser, Professor of Constitutional, Administrative, and European Law at the University of Zurich and Director of the Center for Democracy in Aarau; as well as with an engaged audience:
You can heare the answers in the videos, which you can access with a single click.
