The Global Forum Model
The project operated through four regional hubs in Bogotá, Budapest, Cape Town, and Colombo. These hubs acted as fertile grounds for research incubation and the creation of new teaching modules and materials. Each hub further connected with a network of universities, research centers, and think tanks in their respective continents, fostering multidisciplinary discourse on democracy and development. In addition, the hubs actively engaged in public exchanges and policy dialogues, facilitating a holistic understanding of the challenges at hand and promoting collaborative solutions.
The four regional hubs were anchored in distinct themes: Cape Town examined “Democratizing the Developmental State,” Colombo focused on “Exclusionary Regimes, Autocratization and Democracy,” Bogotá explored “New Patterns of Mobilizations for and against Democracy,” and Budapest investigated “Populism, Ideology, and Discourse in the Global South: Sources of Polarization and their Mitigation." These four research themes raised policy-relevant questions concerning billions of people in the Global South and the Global North. The answers to these questions were planned to determine the nature of political and economic regimes in the 21st century.