EDGE (Enhancing Democratic Governance in Europe) is a Strategic Research Programme of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
EDGE responds to the imperative to identify innovative solutions that deliver new ways of political decision-making that help both effectively tackle real-world challenges to democracy and strengthen European democracies.
EDGE brings together researchers from various research groups and disciplines: POLI (the VUB Political Science Department), BSoG (the VUB Brussels School of Governance), RHEA (Research Center on Gender, Diversity, Intersectionality), BRIO (Centre for Information, Documentation and Research on Brussels) and BIRMM (Brussels Interdisciplinary Research centre on Migration and Minorities).
EDGE researchers collaborate in three complementary research areas:
- Climate, Sustainability, and Democratic Innovations: investigating deliberative and participatory democratic innovations to address problems posed by climate and broader environmental crises
- Enhancing Representative Relationships: re-designing relationships between citizens and the central actors and institutions of representative democracy
- Intersectional Inequalities and Democratic Innovations: re-thinking, from a minorities' perspective, intersectional inequalities and ways of politically addressing them
News
Belgian youth parliaments: saviors of the crisis of (liberal) democracy?
Since the 1990s scholars have warned for the crisis of (liberal) democracy. Studies signal a growing indifference towards formal politics, lowers levels of electoral participation, and reduced support for political institutions, especially among the young. However, there is hope.
Events
Practical info-A conversation about Markus Thiel’s latest book “The European Union’s International Promotion of LGBTI Rights: Promises and Pitfalls”
This book critically analyz
