New Berggruen Institute Report Highlights Challenges for Italy Amid Local Elections and Referenda

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As Italians vote in local elections and five pivotal referenda on June 8–9, 2025 — covering labor protections, early childhood education, judicial independence, election law reform, and a pathway to citizenship — social cohesion and rule‐of‐law questions take center stage. According to a new report from UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Berggruen Institute, referenda on strengthening workers’ rights and expanding citizenship won’t, on their own, reverse regional inequality or uplift state capacity. Likewise, changes to judicial oversight and electoral rules risk undermining institutional safeguards if not carefully crafted, they caution, noting that these votes serve as crucial barometers of public sentiment but cannot substitute for targeted policies to rebuild trust, curb clientelism, and safeguard freedoms.

The report’s authors argue that Italy’s revival hinges on action across three interlinked fronts. First, unlock fiscal space through EU-backed spending reforms—streamline bureaucracy, cut inefficiencies, and redirect savings toward digital infrastructure and public‐sector modernization to bolster state capacity. Second, narrow the North–South chasm by accelerating anti-mafia initiatives, funding vocational training hubs, and incentivizing small-business incubation in lagging regions so that local economies can generate jobs and retain young innovators. Third, overhaul industrial strategy—move beyond low-value tourism and basic manufacturing toward green energy, advanced manufacturing, and tech-driven services, boosting Italy’s ranking on the Economic Complexity Index.

The Berggruen Governence Index Project (BGI) analyzes the relationship between democratic accountability, state capacity and the provision of public goods. It builds upon prior work that examined the impact of governance and democracy on the quality of life. It is a collaborative project between the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, the Hertie School, and the Berggruen Institute.

Anheier on Angela Merkel’s Memoir ‘Freedom’

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Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of public policy and social welfare at UCLA Luskin, penned a Project Syndicate commentary on former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recently published memoir, “Freedom,” chronicling her life and career. Merkel, once considered Europe’s most influential politician, left office only three years ago, but “the world has changed so dramatically that her chancellorship already feels like it belongs to a different era,” Anheier writes. Germany’s first female chancellor’s tenure consisted of small, technocratic steps rather than “grand ambitions for Germany’s future, much less Europe’s.” While a number of crises elevated Merkel’s standing locally and globally, he writes, her legacy has been marred by several major missteps, such as misreading Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ambitions and a reluctance to push for much-needed domestic reforms. “Nevertheless, though she was neither a visionary nor a charismatic leader, Merkel was a perfect fit for Germany at a pivotal moment in its history.”

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Balancing Prosperity and Democracy: A Challenge for Mexico

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A new analysis of Mexico’s record on effective governance shows that the nation still outpaces many other Latin American countries yet has struggled to catch up with more developed nations such as the United States and Canada.

The report, using insights from the 2024 Berggruen Governance Index (BGI), sets the stage for Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, whose election in June 2024 extended the leadership of the leftist Morena party.

Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, embarked on ambitious programs of state building and economic nationalism during his tenure from 2018 to 2024, but these efforts have been criticized for contributing to democratic backsliding, particularly in the conservative U.S. press.

“Mexico’s governance trajectory, and specifically the approach taken by the ruling Morena party since 2018, presents a decidedly mixed record,” according to the report authored by researchers from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute and the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany.

“On one hand, Mexico has fostered economic growth, expanded its infrastructure and public goods, and recovered some of the lost ground in state capacity. On the other, Mexico still trails other large Latin American democracies, such as Brazil, in democratic accountability.”

One of Sheinbaum’s key dilemmas will be to balance a more expanded and effective reach of the state without undermining democratic norms. This will be a difficult balance to strike, given resistance to changes like judicial reform as well as the nationalization of resources and use of the military for state-building projects, the report says.

 

Anheier on Next Steps for Germany’s Next Government

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Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of public policy and social welfare at UCLA Luskin, co-authored a Project Syndicate commentary about what Germany must do for its next government to succeed following its recent political collapse. The shake-up, which has precipitated a “snap election” set for February 2025, and the political arguments that have followed — while not desirable — present opportunities for Germany moving forward, according to Anheier. While Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government did propose reforms following years of relative stagnation under former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership, Anheier writes, “some initiatives were introduced too hastily, and others are still awaiting implementation.” Others were derailed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he explains. “The competing pressures to make progress on pre-agreed reforms and achieve a fundamental policy reset — combined with budget constraints and ideological differences — ultimately tore the coalition apart,” Anheier argues, offering four key areas that new German leadership will have to address.

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U.S. Governance Challenges Put Election Integrity at Risk, Report Finds

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With two weeks to go until the U.S. presidential election, a new analysis highlights critical governance challenges that threaten the efficacy of the American political system.

“Declining democratic accountability means that the power of the American people’s voice will be diminished — both in terms of electoral voice and the power of social institutions to check elected officials once in office,” according to the report authored by researchers from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute and the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany.

Based on data from the latest Berggruen Governance Index, the report finds that both democratic accountability and state capacity have sharply declined in the U.S. since 2015.

Particularly in key swing states such as North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, declines in democratic norms — including curtailment of voting rights in some instances — could lead to “critical consequences for electoral integrity,” the authors caution.

The report also notes that an “outsized role of money in politics” has been exacerbated by landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have removed limits on electoral spending and increasingly marginalized the voices of average citizens.

Regarding state capacity, the report finds a broad and steady erosion since 2000, occurring across the sectors of fiscal capacity, coordination capacity and delivery capacity. Weakened state capacity negatively affects the U.S. government’s ability to respond to crises or natural disasters. This can lead to popular anger and increasing frustration with government efficacy, the report says.

— Democracy News Alliance

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Testing the Effectiveness of Big Government

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An Economist article about “Lumbering Leviathans” — governments around the world that are growing bigger and bigger with little benefit for their people — cited research from the Berggruen Governance Index. While it can be difficult to measure the efficiency of government bureaucracies, the article credits the index with devising a cross-country analysis of state capacity using objective measures, such as tax revenue, and subjective measures, such as perceptions of corruption. The Bergguen Governance Index, directed by UCLA Luskin Adjunct Professor Helmut Anheier, issues reports on its major findings as well as on individual countries. The team recently released “Tunisia’s Autocratic Resurgence” ahead of the country’s Oct. 6 elections. The report examines Tunisia’s democratic rise and possible fall in the 14 years since the “Arab Spring.”

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Anheier on the Direction of Democracy Worldwide

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Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of public policy and social welfare at UCLA Luskin, co-authored a commentary about the current state and future of democracy for Project Syndicate. Anheier and his collaborators, Joseph C. Saraceno of UCLA and Edward L. Knudsen of the Hertie School in Berlin, consider what evidence of a global “democratic recession” means. “Realism requires us to reject doomsday predictions about the imminent demise of representative government,” they argue, while cautioning, “But it also means abandoning the teleological belief that liberal democracy will inevitably triumph everywhere.” Despite democracies providing better outcomes in quality of life and public goods they have provided over much of the last half-century, Anheier and colleagues point to research they helped conduct for the 2024 Berggruen Governance Index: Of the 145 countries included in the study, nearly half had both a rising quality of life and declining democratic accountability between 2000 and 2021.

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Understanding Europe’s Political Turmoil

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News organizations covering political upheaval in Europe have turned to the 2024 Berggruen Governance Index (BGI) for a deeper understanding of nations’ capacity to meet the needs of their people. PA Media cited the index’s finding that “long-term scars” caused by austerity and Brexit have stifled economic growth and undermined social cohesion in Britain. The public’s level of trust in many government institutions is at near-record lows, according to the BGI, a collaboration between the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. In France, the researchers found that “sluggish economic performance, persistent inequalities and tensions around migration” fueled a surge in support for the political right, according to the Democracy News Alliance. That said, the index still ranks the quality of governance in Britain and France among the highest of the 145 countries assessed.

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Read the latest BGI reports

 

Democracy Challenged? The 2024 Berggruen Governance Index Updated report examines new data about the relationship between the quality of democracy, governance and life around the world over time

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The world has taken a small step backward on the path of democracy since 2010, according to a global index released this week by an international group of researchers. The 2024 Berggruen Governance Index, or BGI, shows slippage of measurable benchmarks of democratic accountability across 145 countries — from a 2010 average of 67 on a 100-point scale to 65 points in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. The global average had risen from 64 to 67 points between 2000 and 2010. The 96-page report, “Democracy Challenged,” was unveiled Wednesday by researchers at UCLA who collaborated on the project with the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute and the Berlin-based Hertie School. The report led by Helmut Anheier of UCLA Luskin examines the relationship between the quality of democracy, the quality of governance and the quality of life in over 140 countries over 20 years. The finding of slippage in the BGI’s Democratic Accountability Index is only a small setback, which “tempers some of the more dire assessments about the future of democracy,” the authors wrote. Countries with some of the largest declines in the democracy index are India, China, Venezuela, Thailand, Turkey, Yemen and Russia. In the European Union, Poland and Hungary saw significant backsliding, according to the report. The United States, which had risen from 91 to 95 points in the decade through 2010, has since fallen back to 86 on the democracy index. State capacity in the U.S. is also sliding, from a steady 79 points in 2010 to 64 in 2021. Yet on the public goods index, the country has steadily climbed from 84 points in 2000 to 87 in 2021. — Democracy News Alliance

 

Germany in the Doldrums

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Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of public policy and social welfare at UCLA Luskin, penned a commentary about Germany’s political and economic doldrums for Project Syndicate. Once a beacon of stability, the Germany of recent years has proved itself unprepared for global shocks and shifting geopolitics, including a pandemic, energy shortages, and hostilities in Europe and the Middle East. Anheier points to the “liability of success” as a key cause of the country’s woes. “What is true for companies is true for countries: good financial performance can lead to complacency. During periods of strong economic growth, governments become overconfident and disregard changing conditions,” he writes. “Sitting on its laurels for too long left [Germany] ill-prepared for today’s world.”

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