
MEASURING THE STATE OF PLURALISM
The Global Pluralism Monitor, launched by the Global Centre for Pluralism, is a tool that measures the state of pluralism in societies around the world.
The Monitor helps political, economic, social and cultural decision-makers and change-agents across societies to address the root causes of exclusion and improve the prospects for pluralism.
Since 2020, the Centre has launched assessments in 20 countries and is developing partnerships to support the work of pluralism champions worldwide. A new website is anticipated in spring 2023.
Global Pluralism Monitor staff participate in a workshop with the Colombian organisation, Mujeres de la Comision Etnica (Women of the Ethnic Commission) Credit: GCP
Why is the Monitor important?
Diversity in society is universal fact. How societies respond to diversity is a choice. Taking meaningful actions to respond positively to diversity is an ongoing challenge around the world.
This is an urgent issue. Levels of inequality, marginalization and polarization are on the rise and impact people across gender, racial and religious identities. As a result, people face ongoing political, economic and social exclusion that prevent their full and equal participation in society.
To foster more just, peaceful and prosperous societies, exclusions and inequalities based on difference must be addressed. This requires a holistic understanding of the issues, coupled with leadership across all of society.
Centre staff with partners in Canada.
How does the Monitor help?
The reports offer recommendations for policymakers and practitioners on how to advance pluralism.
A team of national experts on diversity and inclusion in a given country applies the Monitor Assessment Framework to produce a country report, drawing on a range of qualitative and quantitative data.
Each team of experts defines the story they want to tell about pluralism.
The reports are grounded in local realities and designed to impact policy and practice by state and non-state actors.
Centre staff with partners in Colombia.
Monitor reports provide a roadmap for policymakers and practitioners and offer a basis for dialogue with stakeholders across the society about:
- GAPS: current state of pluralism and where to focus future interventions
- TRENDS: trajectories towards inclusion or exclusion over time
- INTERSECTIONALITY: treatment of women in societies and intra-group dynamics
- CONFLICT PREVENTION: identify signs of exclusion and marginalization before crisis is imminent
- GOOD PRACTICES: initiatives that are having a positive impact and can be learned from and/or further developed
What is the Monitor’s Assessment Framework?
The Monitor is an application of the Centre’s unique approach to pluralism. Pluralism focuses on institutional and cultural responses to difference, and the complex interactions between the two.
Institutional arrangements, or “hardware”, – such as constitutions, legislatures, courts, and systems of government – outline the legal and political spaces within which members of societies act. Cultural habits or mindsets, or “software”, shape our perceptions of who belongs and who contributes, and influence how we interact with one another every day.

The Monitor Assessment Framework is rooted in this “hardware” and “software”. It is designed to measure inclusions and exclusions holistically across political, economic and social dimensions, and considers the roles of a variety of actors in society. The Framework spans five dimensions:
- Legal commitments in support of pluralism
- Practices by state institutions to realize commitments
- Leadership towards pluralism from political parties, news media, civil society and the private sector
- State of inequalities between groups in society
- Intergroup relations and feelings of belonging
Read more about the Monitor Assessment Framework:
COUNTRY ASSESSMENTS
Country reports are currently in the final design phase. Additional reports are forthcoming in spring/summer 2023.
BACKGROUND RESOURCES
TECHNICAL ADVISORY GROUP
The Monitor’s development and implementation benefit from the experience and knowledge of an international group of experts with a range of thematic and geographic expertise.
Anna-Mária Bíró
Anna-Mária Bíró –
Anna-Mária Bíró is the director of the Tom Lantos Institute since 2013. Anna-Mária Bíró has dedicated her career to bringing awareness to minority populations and promoting human rights. Between 1996 and 2004, she was the head of the Budapest Co-ordination Office of Minority Rights Group International (MRG) and she worked as the Advisor on Minority Affairs of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. Prior to working at the Tom Lantos Institute, Anna-Mária Bíró was a senior consultant to the Managing Multiethnic Communities Programme, LGI/Open Society Foundations.
In 2015, Anna-Mária Bíró lectured at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. She is member of The UK Network on Minority Groups and Human Rights, as well as a delegate in the Academic Working Group of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Anna-Mária speaks English, French, Romanian and Hungarian.
Allison Harell
Allison Harell –
Allison Harrell is Strategic Chair on the Political Psychology of Social Solidarity at Université du Québec
à Montréal and Associate Director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. She is an expert in quantitative and survey methodologies, and is currently a co-lead for the Consortium of Electoral Democracy (C-Dem)– a SSHRC-funded research initiative with government, civil society and academic partners (including GCP) that is measuring Canadian political and social attitudes before, during, and after elections.
Niraja Gopal Jayal
Niraja Gopal Jayal –
Niraja Gopal Jayal is currently a professor at Centre for Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India and has held academic and visiting positions at London School of Economics, Princeton University and EHESS Paris, among others. She is an expert on state-building, citizenship and democracy in South Asia and has published numerous books and articles about citizenship and diversity.
She has also served in advisory and leadership position for initiatives like World Governance Survey (2001) and State-building in the Developing World (2009-13).
Will Kymlicka
Will Kymlicka –
Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University. Dr. Kymlicka is a leading expert on multiculturalism and citizenship, whose published work includes Multicultural Citizenship and Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity. Along with Dr. Keith Banting, he co-leads the Multiculturalism Policy Index, a monitoring tool that measures policy commitments for accommodating indigenous peoples, immigrants, and national minorities in OECD countries.
Hwok Aun Lee
Hwok Aun Lee –
Hwok Aun Lee is currently a Senior Fellow at Institute of Southeat Asian Studies in Singapore. He is an expert on labour, social policy and education in Malaysia. He has worked extensively on labour policies, macroeconomic reforms and human development in South east Asia. Hwok Aun has researched and published widely on affirmative action in Malaysia and South Africa.
He was previously head of Development Studies, Faculty of Economics at University of Malaya.
Corinne Lennox
Corinne Lennox –
Corinne Lennox is a Senior Lecturer in Human Rights at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She is an expert on human rights frameworks and rights-based mobilizations by minority groups, and her published work includes Transnational Social Mobilisation and Minority Rights: Identity, Advocacy and Norms and Activist Scholarship in Human Rights.
Edem Selormey
Edem Selormey –
Edem Selormey is Director of Capacity-Building for Afrobarometer network, and formerly served as the Fieldwork Operations Manager for anglophone West Africa, and North and East Africa. She is also Director of Research and Knowledge Management at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development in Accra.
Ashad Sentogo
Ashad Sentogo –
Ashad Sentogo is the Director, of Africa Programs at the Auschwitz Institute for Prevention of Genocide and Other Mass Atrocities, New York (USA). As a Drucie French Cumbie Fellow, his research work focused on power-sharing and ethnic conflict in Africa. He previously worked with the Genocide Prevention Program at George Mason University as Program Officer on Prevention of Genocide attached to the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and helped to establish the Regional and National Committees in Member States. Dr. Sentongo’s publications focus on managing ethnic conflicts, conflict transformation, and traditional approaches to conflict resolution in Africa.
Rachel Sieder
Rachel Sieder –
Rachel Sieder is Senior Research Professor at the Center for Research and Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City. She is also associate senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway, and associate fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London. She has an MA in Latin American Studies and a PhD in Politics from the University of London. Her research interests include human rights, indigenous rights, social movements, indigenous law, legal anthropology, the state and violence. Her published work includes Demanding Justice and Security: Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America.
Frances Stewart
Frances Stewart –
Frances Stewart is Professor Emeritus in Development Economics at Oxford University and former director of the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security, and Ethnicity (also at Oxford). She has previously worked as advisor to UNDP’s Human Development Index and consulted on early Human Development Reports. Dr. Stewart has written extensively on group-based inequalities, including Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies and the influential UNICEF study Adjustment with a Human Face.
Stefan Wolff
Stefan Wolff –
Stefan Wolff is Professor of International Security at Birmingham University, and is an expert on the prevention, management and settlement of ethnic conflicts. He frequently advises governments and international organizations and has been involved in various stages of peace negotiations including in Iraq, Sudan, Moldova, Sri Lanka and Kosovo. He has published over 80 articles and book chapters, as well as 17 books, including Ethnic Conflict: A Global Perspective.
Acknowledgements
The Centre would like to acknowledge the support and services provided by Afrobarometer, International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC).