In recent years, many states around the world have introduced some forms of direct-democratic procedures  such as initiatives and referendums. In many places these have become key elements of modern representative democracy. But it took a profound global financial crisis to make people all over the world realize how deficient our democracies are and that they need to be democratized, both within individual countries and also beyond national boundaries at the transnational level.

The 2009 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in Seoul, which took place in September 2009 and gathered citizens from 27 countries focussed on the global challenge of sustainability and the key question of how direct democracy can make our economies more stable and secure. The Seoul forum brought the Asian experience of popular vote procedures on substantive issues into the Global Forum process.  

In Asia, there has been an increasing number of attempts to use modern direct democracy on the local level, but the institutionalization of procedures is still unsatisfactory. The Forum enabled Asia to get more acquainted with experiences from across the world and it gave the world an opportunity to know more about the development in Asia, especially in Korea.

The 2009 Global Forum was the stage of lively discussions and global communication, and opened the door to the unique features of Korea. You are most welcome to browse the Seoul Forum websites and to learn more about this second world conference on direct democracy.