Changing Democracies
Democracy is in crisis. Trust in democratic institutions is falling. In Europe (and beyond), we are (still) witnessing the rise of populism, authoritarianism, extremist parties, illiberal democracies, growing inequality between rich and poor, increasing polarisation and even a new war. Can personal experiences from past transitions to democracy help us address and understand today’s crisis?
Changing Democracies (2023-2025) is a European project that explores how Europe’s living history of recent transitions to democracy might help us understand the vulnerability of today’s democracies. It seeks to identify the processes needed for democracy to fulfil its promises for everyone, and to imagine agency and active citizenship in different ways.
At the heart of Changing Democracies is a series of powerful interviews recorded across 10 countries. These testimonies, gathered from individuals of varying ages, backgrounds, and professions, will serve as the foundation for a series of activities and outputs. Gathered by local partners in their communities across the continent, the testimonies will be integrated into different activities and outputs: a series of local experiences that engage with the testimonies, an interactive website, a documentary, an educational resource pack, a travelling exhibition, a research publication etc. These will be brought to people around Europe who have never experienced life in a non-democratic system, aiming to ignite cross-generational and cross-cultural dialogues about the meaning and future of democracy.
The Changing Democracies Consortium
The project brings together a diverse network of organisations spanning multiple regions and cultures. Drawing on the unique expertise and experiences of partners from Southern, Central, Eastern, and Western Europe it includes organisations working in education, peace-building, media literacy, and cultural research, reflecting the breadth of perspectives essential to understanding democracy’s evolution in different contexts. Their ability to interact in 20 different languages brings a linguistic and cultural diversity essential for gathering a wide range of individual stories.
Partners: the Association for History Education in Greece (Greece), Autres Directions (Netherlands), the Borderland Foundation (Poland), EuroClio - European Association of History Educators (Netherlands), the Evens Foundation (Belgium, Poland), the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (Czech Republic), the Flemish Peace Institute (Belgium), In Medias Res (Netherlands), Mediawise Society (Romania), the Museum of Slavonia (Croatia), the Open Lithuania Foundation (Lithuania), the Research Institute in Art, Design and Society, University of Porto (Portugal), and the School for a Culture of Peace (Spain).
The project begins at the local level, with each partner collecting stories in their region – Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Greece, Czechia, Romania, Lithuania, and Poland – representing almost half of the EU while focusing mainly on countries with more recent experiences of transition.
To find out more about each partner, click on the links in the partners' panel on the left of this page.
For activities involving children and young people in this project, we are guided by the Changing Democracies Children and Young People Protection Policy.
changingdemocracies_children-youngpeopleprotectionpolicy.pdf.
The Changing Democracies Story Collection
The story collection consists of 31 interviews conducted across 10 countries, capturing the voices of witnesses from diverse ages, backgrounds, perspectives, and professions. Each individual has lived through a systemic change from a non-democratic to a democratic society.
Our aim with this collection is to contribute to building a European space where the histories and memories of fascist and communist regimes, resistance, transitions, colonialism, war, and peace can be communicated and explored from different viewpoints.
Working with these fragments of stories from across Europe and beyond allows us to transcend nationalist narratives and historical facts, and to delve into the hopes and fears that shaped people’s lives across different ideological systems. Revisiting these experiences together, we begin to discover what connects and what divides people in different contexts, past and present.
Travelling Workshop: Is My Democracy Your Democracy?
Drawing on experiences chronicled in the story collection, the Travelling Workshop is an invitation to explore different experiences and visions of democracy.
Through the interactive design, visitors meet 31 people from Europe and beyond who witnessed a systemic change from a non-democratic to a democratic society. These individuals experienced change either by living through their country's transition or by moving from a non-democratic country to a democratic one—or sometimes both. By engaging with the witnesses’ hopes, dreams and disappointments, visitors are encouraged to reflect on the promises that democracy once held and examine their own experiences and expectations.
Follow the progress of the Travelling Workshop as it tours Europe via the project’s Instagram page.
Interactive Website: changingdemocracies.eu
Launched in 2025, the Changing Democracies website is both a learning platform and a space for reflection. It invites users to explore the story collection in multiple ways, tracing connections across borders, generations, and political systems.
Visitors can navigate the 31 testimonies through curated thematic narratives, browse by cross-cutting themes such as society and culture, politics and power, or emotions and values—creating their own pathways through the material, or watch a scroll documentary created from the stories.
The website serves as a central hub for the project, bringing together its core elements—testimonies, educational tools, and digital storytelling. It offers a space where the different strands of the project converge, opening up new ways to engage with the lived experience of democratic transition and what it can tell us about today’s democracy.
The website is available in all languages of the Changing Democracies consortium: English, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish.
Scroll Documentary: Is Democracy Worth The Trouble?
Is democracy worth the trouble? The Changing Democracies scroll documentary explores the triumphs, disappointments, and complexities of democratic transitions across Europe and beyond, through personal testimony, illustration, and interactive storytelling.
Unlike traditional film formats, the documentary unfolds as a scroll experience, designed for digital-native audiences to navigate at their own pace. It draws on the project’s collection of 31 testimonies to offer a new perspective on political change—through the eyes of those who lived it.
Bringing together many of the insights and questions that emerged throughout the project, the film reflects on what democracy demands, what it offers, and whether we are still willing to engage with it, take part in it or fight for it.
The scroll documentary debuted in March 2025 and is available to watch on changingdemocracies.eu in all 12 languages of the consortium.
Educational Resource: Learning from Democratic Transitions
The Changing Democracies Educational Resource Pack supports engagement with the project’s testimonies through adaptable learning activities for both formal and non-formal education. The materials are designed to be flexible and easily integrated into different educational contexts.
Each activity is grounded in first-hand testimonies and invites learners to engage with five key questions:
– What makes you angry about the world today?
– Do you dare to challenge your teachers?
– What influences you in life?
– Do you know what your grandparents think of young people?
– What do you expect from democracy?
Designed to spark dialogue across generations and borders, the resource encourages reflection, connection, and critical engagement with the meaning of democracy—past and present.
The format of the pack was co-designed by a Working Group of consortium members and coordinated by EuroClio – the European Association of History Educators. The pack is available in all 12 languages of the Changing Democracies consortium.
Research Publication: The Power of Testimonies for Democratic Education
How can personal stories of dictatorship and democratic transition help young people think critically about democracy today?
The Power of Testimonies for Democratic Education, published by the Flemish Peace Institute as part of the Changing Democracies project, brings together case studies from six countries to explore how oral history can be used as a tool for democratic education.
The research spans a wide range of formal and non-formal settings—from classrooms and teacher training programmes to arts schools and youth workshops—using fragments from the Changing Democracies story collection across the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Through these diverse contexts, the publication examines how young people respond to oral testimonies, and under what conditions these stories can spark reflection on the values, limits, and lived realities of democracy. It also reflects on what we can—and cannot—expect from education when it comes to strengthening democratic culture.
The full publication is available to download via vlaamsvredesinstituut.eu and changingdemocracies.eu, in English.
Democracy is in crisis. Trust in democratic institutions is falling. In Europe (and beyond), we are (still) witnessing the rise of populism, authoritarianism, extremist parties, illiberal democracies, growing inequality between rich and poor, increasing polarisation and even a new war. Can personal experiences from past transitions to democracy help us address and understand today’s crisis?
Changing Democracies (2023-2025) is a European project that explores how Europe’s living history of recent transitions to democracy might help us understand the vulnerability of today’s democracies. It seeks to identify the processes needed for democracy to fulfil its promises for everyone, and to imagine agency and active citizenship in different ways.
At the heart of Changing Democracies is a series of powerful interviews recorded across 10 countries. These testimonies, gathered from individuals of varying ages, backgrounds, and professions, will serve as the foundation for a series of activities and outputs. Gathered by local partners in their communities across the continent, the testimonies will be integrated into different activities and outputs: a series of local experiences that engage with the testimonies, an interactive website, a documentary, an educational resource pack, a travelling exhibition, a research publication etc. These will be brought to people around Europe who have never experienced life in a non-democratic system, aiming to ignite cross-generational and cross-cultural dialogues about the meaning and future of democracy.
The Changing Democracies Consortium
The project brings together a diverse network of organisations spanning multiple regions and cultures. Drawing on the unique expertise and experiences of partners from Southern, Central, Eastern, and Western Europe it includes organisations working in education, peace-building, media literacy, and cultural research, reflecting the breadth of perspectives essential to understanding democracy’s evolution in different contexts. Their ability to interact in 20 different languages brings a linguistic and cultural diversity essential for gathering a wide range of individual stories.
Partners: the Association for History Education in Greece (Greece), Autres Directions (Netherlands), the Borderland Foundation (Poland), EuroClio - European Association of History Educators (Netherlands), the Evens Foundation (Belgium, Poland), the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (Czech Republic), the Flemish Peace Institute (Belgium), In Medias Res (Netherlands), Mediawise Society (Romania), the Museum of Slavonia (Croatia), the Open Lithuania Foundation (Lithuania), the Research Institute in Art, Design and Society, University of Porto (Portugal), and the School for a Culture of Peace (Spain).
The project begins at the local level, with each partner collecting stories in their region – Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Greece, Czechia, Romania, Lithuania, and Poland – representing almost half of the EU while focusing mainly on countries with more recent experiences of transition.
To find out more about each partner, click on the links in the partners' panel on the left of this page.
For activities involving children and young people in this project, we are guided by the Changing Democracies Children and Young People Protection Policy.
changingdemocracies_children-youngpeopleprotectionpolicy.pdf.
The Changing Democracies Story Collection
The story collection consists of 31 interviews conducted across 10 countries, capturing the voices of witnesses from diverse ages, backgrounds, perspectives, and professions. Each individual has lived through a systemic change from a non-democratic to a democratic society.
Our aim with this collection is to contribute to building a European space where the histories and memories of fascist and communist regimes, resistance, transitions, colonialism, war, and peace can be communicated and explored from different viewpoints.
Working with these fragments of stories from across Europe and beyond allows us to transcend nationalist narratives and historical facts, and to delve into the hopes and fears that shaped people’s lives across different ideological systems. Revisiting these experiences together, we begin to discover what connects and what divides people in different contexts, past and present.
Travelling Workshop: Is My Democracy Your Democracy?
Drawing on experiences chronicled in the story collection, the Travelling Workshop is an invitation to explore different experiences and visions of democracy.
Through the interactive design, visitors meet 31 people from Europe and beyond who witnessed a systemic change from a non-democratic to a democratic society. These individuals experienced change either by living through their country's transition or by moving from a non-democratic country to a democratic one—or sometimes both. By engaging with the witnesses’ hopes, dreams and disappointments, visitors are encouraged to reflect on the promises that democracy once held and examine their own experiences and expectations.
Follow the progress of the Travelling Workshop as it tours Europe via the project’s Instagram page.
Interactive Website: changingdemocracies.eu
Launched in 2025, the Changing Democracies website is both a learning platform and a space for reflection. It invites users to explore the story collection in multiple ways, tracing connections across borders, generations, and political systems.
Visitors can navigate the 31 testimonies through curated thematic narratives, browse by cross-cutting themes such as society and culture, politics and power, or emotions and values—creating their own pathways through the material, or watch a scroll documentary created from the stories.
The website serves as a central hub for the project, bringing together its core elements—testimonies, educational tools, and digital storytelling. It offers a space where the different strands of the project converge, opening up new ways to engage with the lived experience of democratic transition and what it can tell us about today’s democracy.
The website is available in all languages of the Changing Democracies consortium: English, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish.
Scroll Documentary: Is Democracy Worth The Trouble?
Is democracy worth the trouble? The Changing Democracies scroll documentary explores the triumphs, disappointments, and complexities of democratic transitions across Europe and beyond, through personal testimony, illustration, and interactive storytelling.
Unlike traditional film formats, the documentary unfolds as a scroll experience, designed for digital-native audiences to navigate at their own pace. It draws on the project’s collection of 31 testimonies to offer a new perspective on political change—through the eyes of those who lived it.
Bringing together many of the insights and questions that emerged throughout the project, the film reflects on what democracy demands, what it offers, and whether we are still willing to engage with it, take part in it or fight for it.
The scroll documentary debuted in March 2025 and is available to watch on changingdemocracies.eu in all 12 languages of the consortium.
Educational Resource: Learning from Democratic Transitions
The Changing Democracies Educational Resource Pack supports engagement with the project’s testimonies through adaptable learning activities for both formal and non-formal education. The materials are designed to be flexible and easily integrated into different educational contexts.
Each activity is grounded in first-hand testimonies and invites learners to engage with five key questions:
– What makes you angry about the world today?
– Do you dare to challenge your teachers?
– What influences you in life?
– Do you know what your grandparents think of young people?
– What do you expect from democracy?
Designed to spark dialogue across generations and borders, the resource encourages reflection, connection, and critical engagement with the meaning of democracy—past and present.
The format of the pack was co-designed by a Working Group of consortium members and coordinated by EuroClio – the European Association of History Educators. The pack is available in all 12 languages of the Changing Democracies consortium.
Research Publication: The Power of Testimonies for Democratic Education
How can personal stories of dictatorship and democratic transition help young people think critically about democracy today?
The Power of Testimonies for Democratic Education, published by the Flemish Peace Institute as part of the Changing Democracies project, brings together case studies from six countries to explore how oral history can be used as a tool for democratic education.
The research spans a wide range of formal and non-formal settings—from classrooms and teacher training programmes to arts schools and youth workshops—using fragments from the Changing Democracies story collection across the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Through these diverse contexts, the publication examines how young people respond to oral testimonies, and under what conditions these stories can spark reflection on the values, limits, and lived realities of democracy. It also reflects on what we can—and cannot—expect from education when it comes to strengthening democratic culture.
The full publication is available to download via vlaamsvredesinstituut.eu and changingdemocracies.eu, in English.