With general elections in the United States less than a month away, anxiety about the state of democracy is running high around the world. And not surprisingly, so is the money flowing into philanthropic organizations that seek to help democracy thrive, or at least survive the coming political storms.
According to a report by the Democracy Fund, a nonprofit independent organization, philanthropic funding in support of democracy increased between 42 percent and 61 percent over four years, to almost $7 billion in 2021 and 2022.
“Billions and billions” are coming in ahead of the Nov. 5 election between former president Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in the United States alone, said Emily Thielmann, vice president of Third Plateau and deputy director of Democracy Funders Network, both based in the United States. She was speaking on a panel, Rethinking Philanthropy: Can Money Save Democracy?, at the Athens Democracy Forum, in association with The New York Times.
“The stakes are very high in the United States and we need all the resources we can have on the table, not just so that we have the kind of robust, thriving liberal democracy that we want in 50 or 100 years, but, frankly, that we make sure we have one in two years,” said Ms. Thielman, whose network represents 600 nonpartisan funders who contribute to a range of programs to support democracy.
Members of the panel agreed that support for improving electoral practices and protecting voters’ rights in the remaining free democracies was ever more vital.
According to the 2024 Democracy Report issued by the Swedish-based V-Dem Institute, 71 percent of the world’s population — 5.7 billion people — live in autocracies, a 48 percent increase from 10 years ago.
“Democracy across the world is in decline,” the report concluded. It specifically cited the erosion of free speech. “Freedom of expression remains the worst affected component of democracy and is worsening in 35 countries in 2023,” the report said.
At the same time, a “market failure” prompted by the rise of the internet has resulted in a corresponding decline in independent and public interest media across the world, said Nishant Lalwani, chief executive of the International Fund for Public Interest Media.
“If you look at the overall situation with journalism and democracy, we are pretty screwed,” said Mr. Lalwani, noting that autocracies like Russia and China are stepping up efforts to control media and fund propaganda, dwarfing efforts to save independent journalism.
“Unless we have collective action, there is no way we can make a dent in this,” he added, noting that China has spent about $7 billion in the last 10 years to buy media outlets outside its borders.
Mr. Lalwani cited a recent report that found that the 38 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development spent only $500 million a year in support of independent public interest media, which was one-third of Russia’s annual propaganda budget.
“Autocracies have realized that media is a cheap asset when it comes to controlling political influence, and that’s because media is not highly valued, and because there isn’t enough independent money to support journalism,” he said.
As newspapers shrink and disappear around the world, battered by an onslaught of social media and free online content, governments and private philanthropy need to recognize that journalism needs help, Mr. Lalwani said. “Journalism is not getting enough recognition as a public good,” he said. “If we want that public good to survive, we need to invest a lot more money.”
The shrinking of civic space, which has exposed citizens in autocratic countries to arbitrary abuse, is also a phenomenon in the United States, Ms. Thielmann said. “We are paying a lot of attention to how we can make sure that people are able to be safe and effective, safe from physical and cyberthreats,” she said. “We are starting to see the closing of civic space in the United States, and it could get a lot of worse.”
The rise of online abuse, hate speech and outright disinformation is largely attributed to the unfettered power of tech platforms, Mr. Lalwani said.
“We have outsourced the rules of public debate and electioneering to tech platforms,” he said. “Now the European Union and regulators are waking up to this.” He said philanthropy could help governments regulate these platforms and develop rules for algorithmic transparency and ways to counter hate speech.
Civic society has been late in recognizing how tech platforms have had “a massive impact on debate in the public square and closing civic space,” he said. “We have to ensure that that changes if we are going to reopen that space.”
Ms. Thielmann stressed the importance of avoiding partisan politics when setting goals for the promotion of democracy.
“We really strive to disentangle preferred policy and political outcomes from democracy, because a lot of pro-democracy space lives on the left, and these things often get conflated,” she said. “The term democracy has become very political and contentious, and we need to build a broad ideological coalition.”
Stefanos Oikonomou, founder of Emergent Suns, which pulls together individual and institutional funding for new initiatives in Europe, noted that philanthropical giving in Europe tended to stay away from the electoral process precisely to avoid the risk of being labeled partisan. European philanthropic organizations, which are less prevalent and developed than their counterparts in the United States, are even more leery of political connections, he said.
“In Europe, there is a strong understanding of what is public, and what is private,” he said. There is a consensus that philanthropy “should not be about individual actors deciding and having so much power.”
According to Ms. Thielmann, studies have shown that American donors are more drawn to programs promoting social justice and less to supporting the institutional efforts that are more popular in Europe.
Meanwhile, many experiments with new voting practices — like ranked choice voting, which allows voters to list their preferences on their ballot — are being tried out on the state level in the United States. “Because we have 50 states, we have 50 mini-working laboratories,” she said.
Mr. Oikonomou said philanthropic organizations should not rely on just money, but should use all the levers at their disposal to protect democracy from the increase in inequality.
“Democracy is eroding and the world is on fire,” he said. “If there are some people who are not feeling these flames, it is because privilege protects them.”
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