About Democratic Audit

Democratic Audit’s core objective is to advance democracy and freedom, and to undertake and promote research into their quality, durability and effectiveness in a UK context.

Democratic Audit was originally set up in 1991 by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust through two partners – Charter88 and the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. Until the early 2000s, the Audit was based at the Human Rights Centre, at the University of Essex, where the first comprehensive audits of UK democracy were published. Democratic Audit UK was subsequently based at the University of Liverpool, when its director, Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg, produced the 2012 Audit of UK Democracy.

It moved to LSE in 2013, under the directorship of Professor Patrick Dunleavy. The Democratic Audit blog was launched in July 2013, and ran until July 2020. The articles on this site date from this period, and feature contributions from high level academics, campaigners and experts on all elements of British democracy and human rights. Democratic Audit has also produced a series of reports, e-books and updates, as well as our periodic complete audit of UK democracy. Our most recent, The UK’s Changing Democracy: The 2018 Democratic Audit, was published with LSE Press, and is free to download in all e-book formats.

Democratic Audit also established a comprehensive election data site for the UK, Democratic Dashboard.

Contact Democratic Audit

Democratic Audit is currently unstaffed, but if you want to contact someone associated with it, please email the individual in question, or democraticaudit@lse.ac.uk.