On September 16-17, 2021, Budapest Municipality, Political Capital, and CEU Democracy Institute held the inaugural Budapest Forum for Building Sustainable Democracies, intending to establish a new annual event. The conference, which brings together domestic and foreign experts, journalists, activists, and policymakers, provided a forum for strategic thinking on our era's critical political, social, economic, and environmental transformations affecting Hungary, the wider region, and the whole world.
During the two-day conference, we covered the following topics:
- democratic sustainability: rebuilding and consolidating democracy in the age of populism;
- social and economic sustainability: addressing inequalities during and after the coronavirus epidemic;
- environmental sustainability: the need for bold policies to accelerate the green transition;
- technological sustainability: policy responses to rapid technological change and public health challenges.
The final program is available here.
Read the summaries of the panels by clicking on the titles below.
- Should Mayors Rule the World: Democracy, Trust, and Citizen Engagement on the Local Level
- Responding to the Chinese Communist Party’s Strategies of Subnational Influence
- Defeating Authoritarianism, Bottom-up: Best Practices
- A Small Tour of Europe – The Lenses of Green Cities
- Presentation on Strategic Foresight
- People Power vs. the Climate Crisis
- Towards Polycentric Governance: Building Room for Democratic Experimentalism in the Political, Urban and Corporate World
- Rebooting Transatlantic Relations
- After the Fall – A Conversation with Ben Rhodes
- A New Vision for Europe: Where Should the EU Be Heading?
- Beyond Dystopian Visions: Social Media for the Public Good
- European Cities as Democratic Strongholds?
- The Future of Healthcare in a Post-Pandemic World
- Angrynomics and Ways to Strengthen the Economic Bases of Democracies
- Overcoming Tribalism and Pernicious Polarization
- Lessons of the Past for Understanding the Future
- Urban Solutions and Smart City Development
- Sister cities: Wolf warrior diplomacy in a sheep’s clothing
- City Diplomacy – a New Tool for Democracy Promotion?
Watch the recording of every panel, including the welcome speech by Gergely Karacsony, Mayor of Budapest, the opening speeches by Laszlo Bruszt, DI's Co-Director, Peter Kreko, Political Capital's Director and David Koranyi, Head of Diplomacy at Budapest City Hall, and the keynote speech by Jean Asselborn, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Luxembourg, here.
Our partners were: Heinrich Böll Foundation, ERSTE Foundation, Center For European Policy Analysis, National Democratic Institute, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Graphisoft Park, Green European Foundation, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Budapest, Embassy of Germany in Budapest, International Republican Institute, and Open Society Foundations.