Transatlantic Democracy Working Group
TDWG was established at GMF in 2018 to coordinate the bipartisan expression of solidarity around U.S. foreign policy grounded in the shared interests and values of liberal democracy. At the time, Washington was in dire need of a bipartisan space to push back on the consolidation of autocratic power by illiberal leaders in Hungary and Poland. Since then, TDWG has evolved to focus on the most pressing flashpoints of autocrats threatening transatlantic democracies, from Ukraine to the United States. In 2024, TDWG’s bipartisan members recommitted to shared principles of civil society coordinating work that defends democracy by educating the public on foreign and domestic autocratic threats.
Working Groups
A group of 20 of the world’s top Ukrainian reform experts—half based in Kyiv and half based on D.C., London, Brussels, and Berlin—meet regularly to share information and coordinate joint efforts such as co-authored research, co-hosted side events at international conferences, background briefings for journalists, and policy briefings for international officials.
A small group of experts from leading democracy organizations are collaborating to map the modern autocratic toolkit—innovated by spin dictators such as Fujimori, Berlusconi, Chavez, Putin, Erdogan, Orban, Modi, Kacynski, Duterte, AMLO, and Bolsonaro—to plans currently being telegraphed by a homegrown autocratic movement in the United States.
Program Experts
In The News
TDWG Insights
