This research area explores the evolving dynamics of political parties and the challenges confronting contemporary democracies. Projects under this area, recognise the growing disjuncture between political elites and the general populace, heightened voter apathy, and a diminishing political legitimacy. These multifaceted crises require that we, as scholars and global citizens, reimagine the role of political parties and the future of democracy.

Political parties play a pivotal role in addressing these challenges because they must now work to re-establishing trust while ensuring the effective delivery of quality public services. This theme delves into the intricate mechanisms required to rejuvenation democratic systems, institutions and practices. Future-Democracy seeks to understand the complexities of the crisis and explores unprecedented and transformative approaches to reinvigorate democratic processes. Through rigorous inquiry, we aim to contribute to the development of robust frameworks and strategies to evolve our democracies.

PROJECT COALITIONS

This project is a pioneering initiative aimed at unravelling the intricacies of coalition politics across the African continent. Coalitions, how they are formed and how they operate in the African political context is an under-explored area. To contribute to their study, this project will map coalition politics and their broader effect using develop agent-based simulations. This is a new use of this methodology within the African context. The simulations will provide unprecedented insights into the mechanics of coalition politics and they also serve as invaluable resource for researchers, policymakers and forms the basis of our larger goal to build agent-based simulations

This project, which is in association with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation (KAS) South Africa, builds upon an evaluation of party positions of nine political parties, including the DA, IFP, FF+, ACDP, ActionSA, BOSA, UIM, Spectrum, and Rise Mzansi. The second phase of this project will use these findings and the positions articulated in the parties’ 2024 campaign manifestos, media coverage, and confirmation interviews to model the benefits, challenges and effects of coalition politics.