Taejae Academy will be hosting a roundtable meeting ‘Reimagining the Building Blocks of Democracy: The Power of the Executive’ in collaboration with the Democracy & Culture Foundation(DCF) on 17th May, 2022. The roundtable will be joined by a select group of participants from academia, the political and business worlds and civic society representatives to discuss emerging challenges to democracies and to address new policy ideas to shape democracy to meet 21st Century demands.

The main theme of the Seoul roundtable is the power of the executive. The sessions will cover issues concerning the separation of powers, including the legislature’s declining ability to mediate and build consensus, the expanding authority of the executive branch, and the politicization of the judiciary.

The roundtale will mainly discuss the following topics:

1. What is the desired balance in the separation of powers in a democracy?

2. As a result of such imbalances, what procedures or institutions have failed in democracies that have gone astray?

3. What should be done when a purported “balance” between the various branches brings democratic process to a standstill?

The roundtable is part of “Reimagining the building blocks of democracy,” an international series of five similar events organized by the Democracy & Culture Foundation (DCF). The project was launched in recognition of the current and emerging challenges to democracies around the world, and the need for fundamental changes to address them.

Each of the five roundtables will therefore result in a set of policy initiatives on the building block it examines. The initiatives will then be stress-tested in a citizens’ panel and revised accordingly. A sixth summary roundtable will unite the proposals in a comprehensive and coherent format that will be presented to a global audience in late September at the Athens Democracy Forum.  Results will be published in a report, to be disseminated to governments, organizations, NGOs, major corporations, and major media outlets.

The project considers the following functional issues of democracy — hence the reference to “building blocks.” The other roundtables cover the following topics:

• The power of the people curated by the newDemocracy Foundation, in Sydney, Australia - May 11, 2022

• The power of the executive curated by the Future Consensus Institute/Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens,

   in Seoul, South Korea – May 17, 2022

• The power of influence curated by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, in Berlin, Germany – June 3, 2022

• The power of information curated by the Bertelsmann Foundation, in Washington DC, USA – May 20, 2022

• The power of voting curated by IDEA, in Tel Aviv, Israel – June 10, 2022

The wrap-up will take place in London, curated by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on July 11, 2022, and the proposed reform package will be presented at the special pre-plenary event of the Athens Democracy Forum on September 28, 2022.

It is noted that the Berggruen Institute is also involved in this project, coordinating and evaluating the citizens’ panel part of the project.

With this project, the DCF and the curators including Taejae Academy want to initiate a global discussion and action plan that will specifically address how to make democracies more resilient and better able to meet the demands of a society buttressed by war, climate change, inequalities, migration and pandemics.