Achieving accountable government
A below par performance? Donald Trump’s golf resort development and government openness and transparency in Scotland
As Donald Trump’s US presidential candidacy campaign continues to cause controversy, Graeme Baxter reflects on the impact the building of ‘the greatest golf course anywhere in the world’ has had on the openness and transparency of Scottish public authorities. Similar PostsJust how much do voters trust Scottish parties’ social media posts?How democratic are the UK’s […]
Northern Ireland desperately needs a deliberative model to prevent it becoming a dictatorship of electoral democracy
Simon Burall of Involve, a think tank specialising in democracy and public engagement, recently authored a new report entitled ‘Room for a View’, which focusses on the idea of UK democracy as a deliberative process. Paul Braithwaite welcomes the report’s insights and argues a deliberative model is urgently needed in Northern Ireland. He writes that the […]
Once again the Constitution seems vulnerable to piecemeal reform arising out of sectional party interest
On Monday the House of Lords voted against changes to tax credits. In doing so, Osborne and Cameron have argued they have broken a constitutional convention, raising “issues that need to be dealt with”. But Sean Swan questions these claims by highlighting that neither the Parliament Act nor the Salisbury Doctrine has been breached as […]
Citizens worldwide are embracing civic technology but the profile of users varies markedly between countries
Technologies aimed at giving citizens the power to hold their governments to account are becoming increasingly common in both developing and affluent countries a new report published by mySociety explores who uses civic technologies and why across four countries, and finds that there are significant differences between users in the US and UK compared to […]
Anonymising UCAS forms is only a first step towards fair and discrimination-free university admissions
The Prime Minister recently pledges to make university admissions ‘name-blind’, responding to statistics which showed a significant racial imbalance in terms of who is admitted to university, with obvious implications for social mobility, fairness, and access to higher education. Steven Jones argues that while this idea is in some ways sensible, it overlooks other more […]
The moment of genuine interest in Canada’s democracy afforded by Stephen Harper’s defeat must not go to waste
The Canadian electorate this week ejected Stephen Harper, the long-serving and controversial Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, and replaced him with the Liberal Party’s Justin Trudeau, who has promised to restore democracy to Canada after a decade of its slow-motion destruction. This moment must not be wasted, argues Claudia Chwalisz. Similar PostsThe promise to change the […]
Has the tide turned for women’s representation in Scotland?
Scotland has a female First Minister, who competes in Holyrood with a female Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, as well as a female leader of the Scottish Conservatives. While this should be welcomed, we should not assume that the problem of women’s under representation is solved for good, and instead look at what statutory […]
The representation of women in elected positions in Wales is not mirrored by the number of women giving evidence
Wales has made more progress on gender equality in its elected bodies than Westminster or the other devolved governments. However, Rebecca Rumbul’s research indicates that the number of non-elected women giving evidence to committees in the Welsh National Assembly is much lower, and in one third of the cases all the participants were male. She […]
The ‘better regulation’ initiative is entrenching corporate dominance over our democracy
Recent revelations about VW cheating emissions tests have underlined the obvious fact that private business interests are not the same as those of the public. Here, Christine Berry describes recent released research by the New Economics Foundation which shows that recent developments have further entrenched the dominance of British and international business over the UK Government. To […]
Deliberative democracy is starting a quiet democratic revolution worldwide
Tomorrow marks the beginning of a series of citizens’ assemblies, organised by the Electoral Reform Society in partnership with academics from Sheffield, Southampton and London, which will be taking place in Southampton and Sheffield over the next month. In this article, Chris Terry discusses the trend of grassroots deliberation which has been gaining momentum since […]
Democratic Audit's core funding is provided by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Additional funding is provided by the London School of Economics.