International Democracy Fellowship
Elected Leaders on the Frontlines of Effective and Innovative Democratic Practice
Democracy evolves through practice, not prescription. The International Democracy Fellowship brings together emerging elected officials from around the world who are creating real solutions to governance challenges in their own countries.
This isn’t your typical democracy promotion program. Moving beyond a Western-centric perspective, we bring together mayors dealing with corruption in Eastern Europe, parliamentarians fighting voter apathy in Africa, and councilmembers rebuilding trust in Latin America. They share what’s working (and what’s failing) in their own backyards, drawing from their frontline experience.
Why IGA?
The Institute for Global Affairs believes that the future of democracy lies in understanding what makes governance work in wildly different places. Our International Democracy Fellowship gives emerging elected officials a platform to share hard-won strategies with peers facing similar challenges elsewhere. From city councils to national parliaments, from 200-year-old democracies to brand new ones, our fellows bring insights earned through actual governing experience.
What sets us apart: We start with local knowledge, what’s working on the ground. A parliamentarian who found ways around partisan gridlock in one chamber can offer practical advice to colleagues stuck in similar battles elsewhere. Our fellows understand that effective democratic governance requires not just support for universal principles but acknowledgment of endemic challenges.
Why does this matter?
Democracy gets stronger when elected officials learn from each other across borders. The best innovations flow peer-to-peer.
Our six-month program (November through May) creates structured opportunities for this exchange. Through monthly virtual sessions, fellows participate in focused, practical dialogue grounded in real-world governing challenges. They present issues actively working through — whether legislative gridlock or institutional trust — and hear from peers who have faced similar problems in different places.
Beyond Solidarity to Strategy
Traditional democracy programs focus on building movements and solidarity. We help leaders swap actual governing strategies. Our fellows understand that strengthening democracy requires understanding how democratic principles apply – and emerge from – diverse contexts.
Our week-long capstone brings fellows together with practitioners, researchers, and policymakers who share their commitment to democratic problem-solving. These connections last well beyond the program, creating an ongoing exchange of what’s working (and what isn’t) in democratic governance worldwide.
Democracy as Problem-Solving
We don’t treat democracy as a blueprint to copy. It’s an ongoing experiment that gets better through constant tinkering and adaptation — local innovation. Our alumni network keeps fellows connected long after the program ends, tracking how solutions developed in one place get adapted and improved elsewhere.
The fellowship fills a gap left by traditional democracy promotion, which often pushes generic solutions that don’t match reality on the ground. We flip that approach, starting with what elected officials are dealing with and building from there.
Measuring What Matters
In the short term, we track the immediate payoff: strategies fellows adapt from their peers and new policies they pilot back home.
Long-term impact requires a new approach. We help innovations spread beyond their starting point, supporting our alumni as they advance in their careers and expand their influence. In this way, ideas that began in one fellow’s district end up improving democratic effectiveness elsewhere.
We measure both the numbers, in policies adopted, and the stories, qualitative assessments of how local democratic innovations influenced broader democratic practice. This dual approach captures both the immediate wins and the deeper shifts in how democracy improves through shared learning.
Who should apply?
Are you an elected official who’s creatively fixing problems for your constituents? We’re looking for emerging leaders who are trying new approaches to get citizens engaged, make government more transparent, or simply get things done in challenging environments.
Applications open in September, with fellows announced in November. We particularly welcome leaders grappling with corruption, inequality, democratic backsliding, and authoritarian pressures—defining challenges that demand creative solutions.
Our program gives you access to cutting-edge research on what’s working in governments worldwide, plus connections with researchers and policymakers studying democratic innovation. You’ll engage with experts in comparative governance while building relationships with fellow practitioners navigating different democratic systems.
Most important, you understand that democracy must be adapted and continuously reimagined, not passively inherited. Your experiments in citizen engagement, government accountability, and responsive governance contain lessons others need to hear, just as their experiences can inform your work.
Partner With Us
Democratic resilience requires backing leaders who translate universal principles into effective local practice. Traditional democracy assistance fails by overlooking how different political environments shape what works. Our fellowship directly addresses this gap by supporting elected officials developing homegrown strategies for better governance.
Our partnership approach differs from conventional programming. Instead of lecturing political leaders, we facilitate exchange among public servants who keenly understand their own political environments as they advance democratic principles.
This investment builds a global network of innovators who recognize that effective democracy requires continuous adaptation and cross-border learning. Fellows become sources of democratic innovation at home while expanding our collective understanding of democratic practice across different political systems.
The program sparks lasting impact through peer learning grounded in real experience rather than imported expertise. These relationships generate democratic innovations long after the formal fellowship concludes.
Partner with us to support leaders who are fixing democracy. Your investment directly supports practitioners whose local innovations deserve to spread beyond their borders. These are the people making democracy deliver results for citizens, sharing and refining their best ideas.
For partnership inquiries or philanthropic support related to this program, please contact development@instituteforglobalaffairs.org.
About Our Program Leadership
Rudina Hajdari leads the Next Generation Elected Leaders Fellowship, bringing rare insight bridging American and European democratic systems. As a former Albanian MP who chaired the European Integration Committee and played a key role in Albania’s EU accession efforts, she knows democratic transition from the inside. Her work at the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee gave her the view from the other side, revealing both the promise and limitations of traditional democracy promotion. Her background as the daughter of a pro-democracy advocate exemplifies the cross-cultural perspective the fellowship seeks to foster, making her perfectly positioned to lead a program that prioritizes learning from local democratic innovations.
For elected officials interested in collaboration, please email hajdari@instituteforglobalaffairs.org.
