Integral Politics was very visible at the Integral European Conference (IEC) 2025 in Hungary. We even might have founded Integral Politics International! IP Switzerland’s delegation was comprised of Aïma Andany and François Suter from IP Geneva, as well as Simon Berg from IP Zürich / IP Switzerland.
An Arc of Workshops and Keynotes
IEC took place in Siófok, Hungary, on the shores of Lake Balaton, from 28 May to 1 June. We offered and facilitated a workshop about how to engage in politics in an integral way. Our intention was to pose some form of challenge to the attendees: they were coming to IEC because they were active with or at least interested in Integral Theory. Were they ready to take a step further?
Thanks to Aïma’s active networking with other conference speakers – Dr. Elke Fein, Managing Director of the Institute for Integral Studies, Freiburg, author of the book “Integral Politics”, and Prof. Karen O’Brien, Oslo University, author of the book “You matter more than you think” – we created a whole “arc” of conference sessions dedicated to the topic of integral politics:
on Thursday afternoon, a workshop by Elke Fein about Deep Democracy;
on Friday afternoon, our workshop entitled “How to engage in politics in an integral way?”;
on Saturday morning, a keynote speech by Karen O’Brien, entitled “Fractals of change”;
right after that, a second keynote, by Elke Fein, entitled “Wholeness in politics – Surfing the polarities”;
finally, on Saturday afternoon, a joint workshop with us, the IP Switzerland delegation, Elke Fein and Karen O’Brien about putting “European Integral Politics in Action”.
There were more than 150 people attending the keynotes and about 20 to 30 attendees in every workshop, with people deeply involving themselves in the topic. Additional people expressed their gratitude for adding politics to the conference schedule.
Thanks to the arc of integral politics sessions, the topic was made very visible. Nearly every day, one of us was on stage to speak or announce a workshop.
Weaving an International Network
Some of the participants of the last workshop on “European Integral Politics in Action” continued the discussion by the lake shore, while awaiting the evening activity (a beautiful bonfire, accompanied by powerful music by Gábor Ölvedi and Fatou Gozlan): ideas were exchanged, email addresses were collected and a first, tiny form of an international Integral Politics community was born. So far, the intention is to share information and to support each another during regular online meetings (every 4 to 6 weeks). Our first meeting will be on Monday, June 23.
Inner Vision Work to Connect to Politics
For our workshop on “How to engage in politics in an integral way?”, we chose to facilitate a process similar to the integralisation method: after a round of connection and introduction, we invited the participants to explore in pairs what would keep them away from politics, expressing their fears, projections, but also plain and simple constraints, like lack of time. This was followed by a round of expressing what could support them in entering politics. We then invited participants to connect to their inner vision, letting go of all that was expressed, opening up to receive a message from their inner wisdom. After that, the vision statements were shared in groups, then boiled down – in pairs – to a possible next concrete step. The synthesis of the flipchart papers with the collected vision statements was brought to the Saturday workshop, as a base for discussion.
Three main directions emerged:
Updating politics
Questioning Political Parties
Strengthening institutions rather than governments
Balancing regional governance with central coordination
Use of technology (AI) for complex governance
Deepening democracy
How to approach politicians
Awareness of impact of Financial Power and Business Agents
Education
Deep Democracy Practices (cf. Arnold Mindell)
Networking
Integral Politics: Party or Political Movement?
Creating an international network
Non “elected politicians” participation: NGOs, informed scientists, economists
A Promising First Step
The workshops yielded some powerful and joyful experiences. The whole arc felt like one of the major events of IEC 2025 and generated a lot of interest. With the IEC community being full of amazing people, the whole event was deeply nourishing.
We are curious what will emerge out of our newly founded international community. With people from countries like Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK, Ukraine, the US – and Switzerland – there is a lot of potential and a lot of new perspectives.
To provide a platform, we have also launched a first basic version of the IP website in English, now also available through www.integral-politics.org.
We plan to report on our international efforts regularly. Watch this space. ✨
One Response
Hi, I wasn’t able to attend the IEC, so very much appreciate this summary of the Integral Politics strand developed at the conference. I would definitely like to become involved in the newly developing international network for IP that began at the IEC, per the note above re: to build on the “first, tiny form of an international Integral Politics community was born. So far, the intention is to share information and to support each another during regular online meetings (every 4 to 6 weeks).”