Taiwan’s evolution over the past four decades to become one of the world’s foremost democratic success stories should be celebrated by all who cherish the preservation of human dignity and potential in Asia. Though elections were regularly held in Taiwan beginning in 1950, the 1948 “Temporary Provisions” to the constitution and the institution of martial law suppressed basic liberties, including the formation of opposition political parties to contest in elections, until martial law was lifted in 1987. Continue Reading

In early 1985, John Hume, the future co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the first person to receive NDI’s Democracy Award, visited Washington, D.C., to build bipartisan support for the politics of peace in Northern Ireland. Known as a civil rights leader in the 1960s from the Bogside in Derry, he had become the leader of Northern Ireland’s Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP) and was by then an elected member of both the British and European parliaments. Continue Reading

From 1965 to 1986, Ferdinand Marcos successfully perpetuated his kleptocratic dictatorship, including through the imposition of martial law (1972-1981) and election fraud. As his autocratic rule stretched from years into decades, political unrest and public outrage intensified with the country’s economic collapse in the 1980s, the systematic suppression of political rights, and the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. in 1983. Continue Reading

Chile’s September 11 happened in 1973, when on that date, a bloody military coup smashed one of Latin America’s strongest democracies with roots stretching back 140 years. The military assaulted the presidential palace, leading to the death of validly elected President Salvador Allende, while it rounded up thousands across the country. Continue Reading

From its earliest days in the 1980s NDI recognized that throughout the world young people were driving forces in democracy movements. From the Philippines’ People Power Revolution to Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, from South Africa’s struggle to end apartheid to student protests against Panama's dictator nullifying elections, young people played key roles in autocracy yielding to democracy. NDI also recognized that young people were not politically monolithic nor necessarily politically active and that significant barriers excluded them, even within democratic structures. Consequently, young people in every country often remained disconnected from traditional political institutions and processes and sought other means of political expression. Continue Reading