Ending UK involvement in torture: lip service is not enough
The Intelligence and Security Committee recently published its report on British involvement in torture up to 2010 and as part of the ‘war on terror’. Ruth Blakeley and Sam Raphael comment on the report, and explain how the government must respond in order to comply with its human rights obligations.
Radical right success and mainstream parties’ anti-immigrant policy shifts
Radical right parties have seen increasing electoral success throughout Europe. What does this imply for parties and party systems? Do established mainstream parties adjust their policy positions in response to successful radical right parties? If yes, is this ‘contagious effect’ restricted to specific party families or is this an overall trend within European politics? Tarik Abou-Chadi and Werner Krause investigate these questions and find that mainstream parties adjust their policy strategies when confronted with a successful radical right challenger and shift toward more anti-immigrant positions. Using a novel research design, they can demonstrate that these shifts are not just a response to changing public opinion but can be causally attributed to the success of the radical right.
Do you get a say? How and why geography divides the British over their political influence
The extent of discontent with established politics in the UK has been laid bare in recent years. One popular explanation puts geography centre-stage: positing a divide between Londoners’ relative contentment and the angry North. Using data from fifteen years of surveys, Lawrence McKay explores geographic differences in perceived influence over national politics. This analysis shows the regional divides are real, accounting for key factors such as class, education and age. More work is needed to establish causes, but surveys suggest the drivers include the view that London is subject to favouritism in policy-making and the perception of a ‘London-centric’ political class.
How democratic is the UK’s proportional electoral system: the single transferable vote (STV)?
Patrick Dunleavy examines the proportional (PR) electoral system now used for smaller UK elections: the Northern Ireland Assembly, and Scottish and Northern Irish local councils. How has STV fared in converting votes into seats and fostering political legitimacy, under British political conditions? An Annex also discusses the list PR system used to elect European Parliament MEPs from 1999 to 2014, but now discontinued as a result of Brexit.
How democratic are the reformed electoral systems used in Britain’s devolved governments and English mayoral elections?
As part of our 2018 Audit of UK Democracy, Patrick Dunleavy and the Democratic Audit team examine how well citizens are represented by the two main reformed electoral systems used in the UK – the ‘additional members system’ (AMS) and the ‘supplementary vote’ (SV). How successful have they been in showing the way for more modern electoral systems to work well under British political conditions?
How democratic is the Westminster ‘plurality rule’ electoral system?
In the first part of our 2018 Audit of UK Democracy, Patrick Dunleavy examines a topic of foundational importance for any liberal democracy – how well does the electoral system (in this case the Westminster plurality rule, aka ‘first-past-the-post’) convert votes into seats? A sudden growth in two-party support in 2017 allowed the UK’s ancient voting system to work far more proportionately. But is this outcome a one-off blip, or the start of a new long-term trend?
Book Review | The People vs Tech: How the Internet is Killing Democracy (and How We Can Save It) by Jamie Bartlett
In The People vs Tech: How the Internet is Killing Democracy (and How We Can Save It), Jamie Bartlett offers an incisive account of the key challenges that Western democracy faces in light of the growing power of technology companies, presented alongside twenty suggestions for how to save it. While it could attend more to the role of capitalism in fostering such behaviour, the book will help readers formulate the questions that need to be asked of the technology surrounding us, recommends Kevin Seidler.
Digital campaigning and the GetUp effect in Australia’s 2016 election
GetUp is a unique political organisation in Australian politics. Since their formation in mid-2005 they have accrued over 1,000,000 members, and fundraise about $8 million annually, from mostly small donations. In 2016 they had their most successful election campaign so far, writes Ariadne Vromen, in terms of both member mobilisation and political impact.
Understanding the ‘rise’ of the radical left in Europe: it’s not just the economy, stupid
A considerable amount of attention has been paid to understanding the electoral rise of populist radical right parties in Europe. However, much less research has focused on understanding the recent electoral fortunes of the populist radical left across Europe. James F. Downes, Edward Chan, Venisa Wai and Andrew Lam argue that three key factors, in the form of the 2008–13 economic crisis, the decline of the centre left and Euroscepticism can partly explain the post-crisis electoral growth of populist radical left parties in Europe. In addition, it is important to note that this electoral growth is higher than centre left and right parties, but considerably lower than populist radical right parties.
Unionism versus self-interest: would MPs support Proportional Representation?
In light of the electoral divergence between the UK’s constituent nations, and the real danger of a break-up of the Union, Klaus Stolz makes the case for Proportional Representation. He explains, however, that reform will be a choice between the collective self-interest of Labour and Conservative MPs on the one hand, and their ideological values on the other.
Democratic Audit's core funding is provided by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Additional funding is provided by the London School of Economics.