Where Democracy Gets Rebuilt: The Case for Cities as Europe's Democratic Infrastructure

Where Democracy Gets Rebuilt: The Case for Cities as Europe's Democratic Infrastructure

The Nets4Dem Conference in Brussels this week surfaced a question European policymakers have been circling for years: can democratic resilience be strengthened from the bottom up? With 94 countries experiencing measurable democratic decline in 2024 and over a third of European mayors now naming democracy as a major priority, the evidence suggests that cities may be the most underutilized asset in Europe's democratic toolkit. The conference brought together local governments, EU institutions, and civil society to explore what practical democratic renewal looks like when it happens in neighborhoods, housing blocks, and high school classrooms rather than parliamentary chambers.

The relationship between local governance and democratic resilience is precisely the kind of structural question that benefits from sustained, cross-sector dialogue. For those interested in how European institutions might better connect with the communities they serve, Human x AI Europe in Vienna on May 19 offers a space to continue this conversation.

The Disagreement Worth Having

When European policymakers discuss democratic resilience, they often mean different things. Some mean defending against foreign interference and disinformation. Others mean rebuilding trust in institutions that citizens have abandoned. Still others mean creating new mechanisms for participation that go beyond voting every few years.

These are not the same project. And until the debate disaggregates these positions, participants risk talking past each other.

The Nets4Dem Conference, held in Brussels this week and organized by Eurocities and TEPSA, attempted something useful: it brought together actors who typically operate in separate conversations and asked them to specify what they actually mean by democratic resilience, and what they think would strengthen it.

The answer that emerged was not a single policy prescription. It was a structural argument: that democratic resilience cannot be built exclusively at the EU or national level, because democracy is experienced most tangibly at the local level. The question is whether European institutions are designed to take this seriously.

What the Data Actually Shows

The empirical picture is sobering. According to International IDEA's global state of democracy report, Europe is in its eighth consecutive year of overall democratic decline. Of 173 countries studied, nearly half have seen significant regression in at least one fundamental area of democratic functioning.

Sahib Singh, Senior Expert at Demos Helsinki, presented data at the conference showing that 94 countries suffered measurable decline in democratic performance in 2024 alone. Yet Singh also offered a crucial distinction:

Citizens have not given up. They have disengaged from institutions, not necessarily from democracy itself.

Sahib Singh

This distinction matters enormously for policy design. If the problem were that citizens had rejected democratic values, the response would need to be persuasive or educational. But if the problem is that citizens have lost faith in institutions while retaining democratic commitments, the response needs to be structural: creating new pathways for participation that feel meaningful.

Eurocities' latest research shows that democracy has risen sharply on the urban agenda, becoming mayors' second highest priority alongside affordable housing, after climate action. Over a third of mayors now name democracy as a major priority. This represents a significant shift in how local leaders understand their role.

Three Models of Local Democratic Innovation

The conference showcased several concrete examples of what democratic renewal looks like in practice. Each illustrates a different theory of change.

The Housing Block Model

In Budapest, the Safe at Home project brought residents of K22, the city's largest social housing building, into direct dialogue with decision-makers about the building's future. Katalin Hegyes, psychodrama leader for the Hungarian Association of Psychodrama, described the approach:

Our democracy project doesn't take place in parliament, nor on grand stages, it takes place in the largest social housing building of Budapest.

Katalin Hegyes

The project produced a shared vision including participatory budgeting proposals and renovation planning.

The Climate Assembly Model

In Izmir, Turkey's first local Climate Citizens' Assembly brought residents into local climate governance, producing 30 citizen recommendations and an implementation guide for replication. This model treats participation not as consultation but as co-governance on specific policy domains.

The Youth Engagement Model

In Timisoara, the Timisoara Decides campaign engaged high school students aged 14 to 18 in participatory budgeting. Around 300 students from 17 high schools developed 64 proposals, with over 6,500 students participating in the vote.

What connects these examples is not their specific mechanisms but their underlying logic: participation becomes meaningful when residents can see a clear link between their ideas and real outcomes.

The Institutional Gap

The European Democracy Shield and the planned European Centre for Democratic Resilience have brought renewed attention to how Europe protects democracy. Daniel Fleischer-Ambrus, Team Lead for Democracy at the European Commission's DG JUST, explained that the Shield is built around three areas: safeguarding information integrity, supporting democratic institutions and elections, and boosting societal resilience and citizen participation.

But conference participants raised a structural concern: these frameworks risk treating local governments as implementation partners rather than co-designers of democratic strategy.

Anu Juvonen, Executive Director of Demo Finland and President of the European Partnership for Democracy, warned that civic organizations must not be treated only as delivery partners. They also have a vital watchdog role, especially as civic space comes under pressure.

The Local Alliance's 10-Point Action Plan for the next EU budget makes this argument explicitly:

Local and regional governments are Europe's frontline for delivering change. They are the democratic level closest to citizens, trusted by a majority of Europeans, and directly or through shared responsibility in charge of implementing most EU legislation.

The Alliance calls for permanent multilevel governance structures in all Member States, not only in relation to national partnership plans but across all headings of the EU budget. The argument is that without such structures, multilevel governance becomes formalistic or tokenistic consultation, leaving local and regional governments with little real influence on decisions regarding policies and financing.

The Research Question

Does local democratic innovation actually work? The evidence is mixed but suggestive.

Singh presented research showing that citizens' assemblies can increase political knowledge, reduce polarization, build trust, and increase openness to opposing views. But he warned that good outcomes depend on good design.

Melisa Ross, Co-lead at the Global Citizens' Assemblies Network, argued that democratic innovations should not only help societies bounce back after crises but also bounce forward by deepening democratic commitments. She identified conditions under which participatory institutions can help broader systems survive stress:

When you have legal infrastructure, continuity, political embedding, problem-solving capacity and some form of linkage to decision-making.

Melisa Ross

This suggests that the question is not whether local democratic innovation works in the abstract, but under what conditions it produces durable effects. The answer appears to involve institutional embedding, not just episodic experimentation.

What Would Have to Be True

For local action to genuinely strengthen European democratic resilience, several things would need to be true:

First, local democratic innovations would need to be connected to decision-making power, not just consultation. Participation without influence breeds cynicism.

Second, EU frameworks would need to treat cities as co-designers rather than implementation partners. This requires structural changes to how European democracy policy is developed.

Third, the relationship between local experimentation and national or European policy would need to be clarified. What happens when local democratic innovations conflict with national priorities?

Fourth, resources would need to follow rhetoric. The Nets4Dem network and similar infrastructures require sustained investment to connect actors, knowledge, and practice across Europe.

Michael Runey, Adviser at International IDEA, offered perhaps the most important reframe:

Democracy is not necessarily inherently resilient. It does not happen automatically.

Michael Runey

Democratic resilience is not a state to be defended but a capacity to be built. And the question of where that building happens most effectively remains genuinely open.

The strongest version of the local action argument is not that cities can replace national or European democratic institutions, but that they can serve as laboratories for democratic innovation and as the level where trust is most likely to be rebuilt. Whether European institutions are designed to learn from these laboratories is a different question entirely.