Comics, Nonprofits, and Political Activism

Political closing space is defined by increasing restrictions on civil society, independent media, and multi-party political competition, and it is a threat to free and fair elections in a democracy. Recently we partnered with the International Republican Institute (IRI) and The Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) to create a comic book guide and a series of infographics that offer ways to counter and combat political closing space.

CEPPS is comprised of nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organizations dedicated to advancing and supporting democratic practices and institutions across the globe. In addition to providing articles and information about developments and challenges to democratic elections around the world, the group also provides programs and toolkits in order to inform people of these developments and challenges, and offers strategies for how to respond to said challenges.

Partnering with IRI and CEPPS to create certain components of their program on political closing space presented a new opportunity for our team at SPC. We’ve traditionally created comics for academics that they use to enhance the presentation of the findings and conclusions of their research. With CEPPS we had the opportunity to work with a nonprofit to disseminate information intended to spark and support political activism in a very practical manner. Part of the creative process for our team involved making sure the materials were both informative and motivational. Also, it gave us the opportunity to be involved in extremely meaningful work both in general and in the current political climate in which we find ourselves. Overall, it was a great project and we look forward to working with more nonprofit organizations in the future.

You can find CEPPS’s full program for political parties in closing space, including the comic and the infographics here. This project was funded by the United States Agency of International Development.