Release of the 2026 Berggruen Governance Index: The Four Worlds of Governance

Join us for the release of the 2026 Berggruen Governance Index at UCLA.

Wednesday, May 6, 2026
11:30 AM
UCLA Kerckhoff Grand Salon
308 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095

ABOUT THE EVENT

The 2026 Berggruen Governance Index measures the relationship between quality of democracy, quality of government, and quality of life across 140+ countries from 2000 to 2023.

Its central finding: governance performance is strikingly persistent. The world divides into four distinct governance clusters — Consolidated Democratic States, Capacity-Constrained States, Authoritarian and Hybrid States, and Low-Capacity Developing States —and nearly six in seven countries sit in the same cluster today as they did in 2000. Of the rare movers, only one country joined the consolidated democracies; several fell out, while the authoritarian cluster gained members.

Meanwhile, the three dimensions of governance have diverged. Democratic accountability has stagnated globally. State capacity has barely budged. Yet public goods provision has improved nearly everywhere—especially where state capacity is weakest.

This raises a critical question: if quality-of-life gains are outpacing the institutional foundations that sustain them, how long can they last? And can these different governance worlds manage what’s coming—from AI and climate change to demographic shifts and political fragility?

Program

Welcome — Anastasia Loukaito-Sideris
Democracy and the Berggruen Governance Index — Dawn Ngakawa
Presenting the 2026 Index — Helmut Anheier & Joseph Saraceno
Panel Discussion — Stella Gherwas, Michael Storper, Vinay Lal
Response — Helmut Anheier & Joseph Saraceno
Audience Q&A
Closing — Alexandra Lieben
Lunch on the patio

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Helmut Anheier is Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy, Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany, and the Principal Investigator of the Berggruen Governance Index project at the Luskin School. His research centers on social innovation, nonprofits, civil society and philanthropy; governance; cultural policy; organizational studies; and indicator systems.

Stella Ghervas is Professor of History and the Eugen Weber Chair in Modern European History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the intellectual and international history of modern Europe, with particular attention to peace and peacemaking, the circulation of ideas, and state-to-state relations. It spans several related areas: Europe’s engagement with the wider world; Russia and Eurasia, including maritime and oceanic studies; and the interplay of local, regional, and transnational dynamics.

Vinay Lal teaches a broad range of courses at UCLA in Indian history, comparative colonial histories, subaltern history and Indian historiography, as well as graduate level seminars on the contemporary politics of knowledge, postcolonial theory, and the politics of culture. He has also taught seminars on “colonialism and the politics of knowledge systems”, anti-colonialism, and the global South, and comparative studies in systems of oppression, focusing on slavery on the American plantation, the Holocaust, and the caste system in India.

Alexandra Lieben is the Deputy Director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations and Lecturer at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. A certified mediator, she teaches constructive communication, alternative dispute resolution, public dialogue, cultural competency, international conflict resolution, and community and economic development to undergraduate and graduate students at UCLA.

Joseph Saraceno is an experienced researcher who has conducted and managed studies across academic, industry, and government contexts. His doctoral research utilized novel quantitative methods to evaluate the representation of marginalized groups within American political institutions and has been published in Journal of Politics, The Forum, and other peer-reviewed outlets.

Michael Storper is an economic geographer and my research is about the geography of economic development. The world economy entered a new period around 1980, characterized by the main forces of technological change and globalization. In this New Economy (now growing old), many patterns of economic development changed. The economics of inter-related changes are my main subject. In his different research projects, he addresses aspects of the big picture.