Corporate interests and wealthy individuals reckon they can turn a profit by cajoling politicians round to their way of thinking. So how can the humble electorate hope to respond?
The rise of left-wing populism challenges those who flatly denounced right-wing populism as undemocratic. Populism can appear as a democratic force in some contexts and anti-democratic in others.
More than 20 years ago, two American academics, Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, wrote about what they described as The Real World Order: Zones of Peace/Zones of Turmoil. As is the way with such things…
The news today that Ed Milband has ruled out forming a coalition with the SNP may come too late to limit the impact of the latest Tory attempt to illustrate that the Labour leader is a political lightweight…
Many recent elections have ended with bitter disputes about electoral integrity. The issue is perhaps best exemplified by partisan divisions in the United States over Republican allegations of voter fraud…
Even by recent standards, the last few weeks have seen new levels of dysfunction, volatility and even chaos within federal and state governments. As the voters of Queensland demonstrated, there is little…
Throughout history, whenever new technologies have emerged that change our means of production and ability to communicate they have tended to transform society. The rapid technological development of the…
General elections are the great democratic leveller. Every citizen – however wealthy, educated or interested – gets an opportunity to pass judgement on the performance of the government and the direction…
We are becoming very familiar with repeated warnings that citizens in Britain are increasingly disillusioned with democratic politics, rejecting the institutions of national government, and leaving British…
Queenslanders will soon head to the voting booths to either oust or re-elect the Newman government and no doubt some will be wondering why. “Why must I vote or be fined? Why must I be forced to choose…
The ease with which a hoaxer was recently able to call the prime minister’s mobile phone, pretending to be the head of GCHQ, highlights a major dilemma for democratic political leaders. Cameron said he…