Seventeen reads to change the way you think about democracy in 2018

A lot happened in 2017 – so much that you may have missed some of it. Ros Taylor, the outgoing editor of Democratic Audit, picks some of the best posts we’ve published.

No 10’s Christmas tree arrives. Photo: Number 10 via a CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence

…about the vagaries of first-past-the-post

75 more votes in the right places – that’s all the Conservatives would have needed to govern alone

… about who came up with the idea of a ‘property-owning democracy’

Who invented the British dream of a ‘property-owning democracy’?

… about women in politics

Rising violence against women in politics threatens democracy itself

… about Britain First, the group Trump retweeted

The curious case of Britain First: wildly popular on Facebook, but a flop in elections

… about Tony Blair and Iraq

Long read: Public opinion, legitimacy and Tony Blair’s war in Iraq

… about blaming the poor

‘Stuck in their ways’: how we blame the poor for their failure to embrace globalisation

… about ‘the will of the people’

To fend off populism, we must stop believing in the will of the People

If you believe Brexit is a mistake, you have a democratic duty to oppose it

… about the House of Lords

Called up for parliamentary service: why we should replace the Lords with a House of Citizens

… about election observers

International election observers: the watchdogs with no bite

… about Brexit and Northern Ireland

Brexit has blown open the unreconciled divisions in Northern Ireland

… about Labour

Celebrate the transformation of the Labour Party, not the individual who happens to speak for it

.. .about what happens when prisoners are left to govern themselves

When inmates make the rules (and enforce them): democracy in self-governing prisons

… about Facebook

You Like this and I Like that: is Facebook just an echo chamber, or is something more complicated going on?

… about dictators who call elections

Why has Turkmenistan’s despotic president created the characteristics of a democracy?

… about Austria’s new interior minister

Austria’s new interior minister is a man to watch – and not for the right reasons

… and last – but not least – about the state of UK democracy

https://www.democraticaudit.com/the-2017-audit-of-uk-democracy/

Happy holidays to all our readers!

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