When the U.S. Congress broke for the July 4th recess, some members headed for a town hall meeting. Familiar topics — schools, infrastructure, disabled people's rights — were on the agenda, but this meeting took place far from their home districts. The setting was the Liberian village of Kakata, where eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives were there to take it all in.

Despite recent violence and significant challenges ahead, Kyrgyzstan has made progress on democratic reforms, NDI Vice Chair and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle concluded following a recent trip to that country.

The importance of democracy support was the subject of a dynamic discussion this summer by a broad array of policymakers from both sides of the Atlantic who met in Washington, D.C., for the first installment of a dialogue aimed at bolstering cooperation on democracy and human rights between the European Union (EU), the United States and the broader transatlantic community.  The dialogue took place as the administration seeks to recalibrate the U.S. approach to democracy support and as the EU seeks to build greater coherence on democracy assistance policy among its member states.

Iraqis are becoming increasingly frustrated about the delay in the formation of a new government five months after last spring's parliamentary elections, and a majority of them believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a recent public opinion poll conducted by NDI.

The survey, based on 4,000 interviews conducted June 21-26, showed that while no one choice for prime minister had a majority, the leading candidate among those polled was Ayad Allawi, representing the Iraqiyya coalition, which got the most votes in the March 7 elections.