This week openDemocracy has introduced a new  series ‘How do parliaments shape democracy?’ in collaboration with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), a group offering British expertise in both parliamentary- and political party-strengthening.

WFD aims to use the openDemocracy platform over 2016 to explore some of the most pressing issues facing the sector: such as, what are the obstacles to parliamentary strengthening? How to identify democratic trends and combat democratic backsliding? What’s happening in Russia’s near neighbourhood, in response to the rise of Turkey’s HDP, and what can we learn from poldering in The Netherlands?