When Ronald Reagan delivered his famous speech to the British Parliament at Westminster in 1982, his call for free societies to promote liberty and democracy around the world was not addressed to Americans alone.  From its earliest days, IRI has sought to build partnerships and alliances with likeminded organizations from across the globe.  Indeed, much of the early inspiration for IRI was the work of the German political party foundations, which played a key role in democratic transitions in Iberia and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.

In recent years, this effort to build partnerships expanded broadly and deeply and has borne fruit.  IRI’s Regional Program for Europe, based in Bratislava, is a cornerstone of this effort.  While focusing on its core mission of consolidating democratic gains in post-communist Central Europe, the Europe Regional Program works to build transatlantic alliances for democracy promotion.  A series of IRI conferences in Brussels and Washington have focused on encouraging European governments and parties to join the cause.  The regional program also works to encourage new democracies to begin their own democracy promotion programs. Countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia have launched efforts to share their experience in building democratic institutions, joining older democracies including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Spain and the Netherlands.

Through its collaboration with IRI, the Eduardo Frei Foundation (EFF) of the Netherlands has undertaken its first-ever, multi-year program activity in Turkey and now co-sponsors a series of IRI youth leadership seminars organized in cooperation with youth wing of Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party.  EFF is also an important source of training expertise for IRI across the countries of the Arab Spring.  Other European foundations, including Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Spain’s Foundation for Social Research and Analysis and Greece’s Constantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy have all partnered with IRI on conferences, trainings and seminars, providing financial and programmatic support.  As a result of this growing collaboration, IRI and several partners are looking for ways to formalize these cooperative relationships.

Through cooperation like this with the International Democrat Union and European People’s Party (EPP), IRI has broadened and deepened its pool of volunteer trainers.  IRI programs have included Austrian, Dutch, German and Norwegian trainers working with activists in the Middle East on campaign and organizing skills.  Norwegians and Dutch have also assisted IRI trainings in Indonesia and Latin America.  French political activists have consulted with Croatian political parties.  British, Dutch, Irish, Spanish and Swedish trainers helped IRI provide campaign skills training for up-and-coming leaders in the Balkans.  Spokesmen from the Slovak Ministry of Labor partnered with IRI to train Burmese opposition leaders.  Swedish, Bulgarian and Slovak political activists traveled to Cuba to work with dissidents to help them promote peaceful democratic reform, and Estonians have trained future Belarusian policy leaders in managing the transition once democratic change begins.  Czechs, Hungarians, Macedonians, Poles, Romanians, Spaniards and others have served as delegates on IRI election observation missions to Bangladesh, Egypt, Georgia, Jordan and Nigeria. 

IRI’s Women’s Democracy Network also collaborates regularly with the EPP and its official association of women, EPP Women.  This partnership includes co-hosting European Parliament study tours for international delegations of elected women and EPP Women representatives from Austria and the Netherlands serving as volunteer trainers on governance and campaign skills for women in Burma and South Sudan.  In addition, IRI brought female leaders from France, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Slovakia and Sweden to Istanbul to work with women from throughout the Middle East and North Africa. 

All told, more than 300 Europeans have served on IRI missions and training programs.

IRI assisted leaders of Australia’s Liberal Party as they created mechanisms to promote democracy.  In 2006, official funding was, for the first time, provided to Australia’s major political parties for programs promoting democracy, and the Liberal Party has teamed with IRI on democracy-building activities in Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea.  More recently, members of the Liberal Party of Australia have conducted trainings for IRI in Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Cambodia.

In June 2011, IRI hosted the first of its kind exchange program with the India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to lay the foundation for future cooperation between IRI and the BJP on training and outreach to other political institutions in Asia and other regions around the world.  Engaging India has long been a priority given the country’s role as the world’s largest democracy and its history as a stable and thriving democracy that coexists with widespread poverty and substantial religious, cultural and linguistic diversity.  IRI and the BJP share a mutual interest in providing critical leadership and governing skills to political leaders and in strengthening political institutions.  In January 2012, an IRI delegation made a return visit to India, organized in coordination with the BJP’s affiliated training complex, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini Knowledge Excellence Centre.  IRI plans to engage the BJP and the centre, and ultimately other partners as well, in its programming, such as training sessions and additional networking opportunities for interested partners in the region and globally.

In Mexico, where truly competitive elections were held for the very first time in 2000, the ruling National Action Party (PAN) and it’s political opposition, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), joined with IRI to train political party representatives and civil society groups from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela.  Additionally, PAN and PRI have also provided election observation delegates and issue-specific experts for IRI projects in Jordan and Nigeria.

IRI has also had numerous Canadians assist with training missions and serve as delegates on election observations around the world.  Canadian policy experts have also assisted with policy formation and development, attending sessions with European and other counterparts at conferences sponsored by IRI.

Incorporating this international experience adds immeasurably to IRI’s work around the world and is a vivid rejoinder to the autocrats who brand democracy promotion an American project.