Philanthropy and Democracy
Prof. Nicolas Duvoux
The relationships between philanthropy and democracy are complex. There is a structuring tension between the individual initiative of the philanthropist and the principle of equal rights of democracy.
The GCP research aims to develop an understanding, anchored within the Swiss and European realities, of the ways to express and resolve this tension. There is a significant scientific potential insofar as this dynamic has been largely thought through the American social, political and intellectual prism - a prism that is as distorting as it is thought provoking (Duvoux, Lefèvre, “Philanthropy and Democracy: Challenges and Outlook for Foundations”, The Philanthropy Observatory, Fondation de France, 2023)? How does the relationship between philanthropy and democracy, put on the agenda for reflection by Rob Reich's book (Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can Do Better Princeton, Princeton AV短视频 Press, 2018), play out in the Geneva, Swiss and European contexts? How do forms of participation can contribute to this democratization? What impact does this relationship have on the design and implementation of the strategies of the foundations?
This axe of research is organised in different projects:
