The Center for Applied Research on Risks to Democracy at Tel Aviv University strives to promote innovative and multidisciplinary research that focuses on the key challenges that threaten the stability and functioning of democracy, in Israel and around the world.
The center was founded with the understanding that democracy is not a permanent, self-evident entity, but a dynamic system that depends on public trust and its ability to adapt its institutions to a changing reality.
The Center for Applied Research on Risks to Democracy
The constitutional crises that Israel has faced in recent years, exacerbated by the war that broke out in October 2023, along with the general wave of democratic retreat around the world, highlight the fragility of democracy. These events demonstrate the urgent need to treat democratic institutions not as givens and agreed upon, but as entities that depend on public trust, when this trust is unstable and subject to manipulation by their opponents. The deep understanding that underlies the establishment of the Center is that the struggle for democracy is a constant struggle, and new answers must be constantly sought to deal with emerging challenges. The understanding that has become clearer in recent years is that the institutional tools developed in the past to protect the rules of the democratic game – voting rules and political rights backed by judicial review – have lost their effectiveness. Ongoing processes of social radicalization and economic inequality have increased feelings of distrust between distinct discourse communities and between them and elected officials and law enforcement institutions.
Israel is particularly vulnerable to attacks on democratic institutions, as its society is deeply divided and there is a lack of mutual trust between its various parts. Some view certain groups (e.g., Palestinians within Israel) as illegitimate partners, others - such as the ultra-Orthodox communities - reject the very commitment to democracy, and there are also significant disagreements about the meaning of democracy (whether it is liberal or not). Another sharp dispute exists over the territorial scope of the democratic state. These deep social divisions operate within a legal system that lacks a written constitution and a fragile system of checks and balances to protect against the power of a casual majority determined to seize power. The result is a fragile democracy that does not adequately protect gatekeepers, political freedoms, and equality in society from it. Legal and institutional weakness contributes to and is exploited to deepen distrust between parts of society and toward state institutions.
The fundamental challenge that drives the Center is to identify and diagnose these processes and design the tools that can address them, thereby creating ways to create and strengthen renewed trust in the possibility of democratic decision-making and trust in government institutions. Our main research object is the State of Israel and we strive to produce applied research that will examine ways of acting in the Israeli research environment. The Center will respond to this challenge by promoting innovative, applied, and multidisciplinary research on the key problems facing Israeli society while learning about similar or different problems that exist in other democratic societies. The Center will strive to find solutions and implement them in Israeli society.
Against this backdrop, Tel Aviv University is launching this ambitious initiative aimed at fostering and promoting innovative, applied, and multidisciplinary research that will explore the challenges of democracy from diverse perspectives. Its goal is to: (a) identify the main problems facing democratic societies in general and Israel in particular: what are the mechanisms used to create discord and hostility between segments of the public? What are the possible solutions to heal the rifts and create a basic common denominator that enables mutual trust? How do we strengthen trust in existing gatekeepers? What other gatekeepers can be developed?, (b) initiate and conduct applied multidisciplinary research to understand the problems and propose solutions to them, and (c) develop tools for disseminating knowledge in the form of educational tools to instill democratic values and strengthen civil society initiatives aimed at rebuilding social and political trust. The center will cultivate a new cadre of researchers, and equip researchers with a 'democratic toolkit' for studying and teaching democracy.
The Center particularly encourages research in specific key areas that we identify as particularly challenging: the impact of rising inequality in society on social cohesion and consequently on trust in democracy, the civil service, and the courts; the need to rethink existing public institutions and explore new ways to increase accountability and public participation in collective decision-making; and the promise and challenges of new technologies on democratic deliberation and social cohesion. We will constantly identify new challenges and readjust our priorities.
The center uses the results of its research to create a 'democratic toolkit' for studying and teaching democracy, with the idea that through the discourse on democracy, attempts at division and cover-up can be overcome and attempts can be made to locate the launching points between communities on the basis of which renewed trust in majority decisions can be created and maintained. Beyond research, and in response to the clear and urgent need to foster democratic values among the younger generation, the center will promote the study of democracy throughout the country, from middle school to university level and across all academic disciplines.
Dr. Ronit Levin-Shnur was a co-founder of the center, and the center thanks her for her contribution to its establishment.