In the aftermath of the Lords defeats on tax credit cuts there has been much talk of a ‘constitutional crisis’. In this post Meg Russell argues that whilst last Monday’s vote was certainly unusual, the most significant change is the wider political context: that it is a Conservative government on the receiving end of repeated defeats in the Lords. Much like […]
Following an independent report assessing paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland last week, Rick Wilford reviews the current crisis and assesses prospects for institutional reform. He writes that while there are grounds to believe that progress is being made, the scope and scale of reform may fall prey to the temper of DUP-Sinn Féin relations which […]
Can the study of peace be separated from the study of war? In The Question of Peace in Modern Political Thought, editors Toivo Koivukoski and David Edward Tabachnick attempt to present an interrogation of peace as an independent strand of philosophical inquiry. While Alexander Blanchard suggests that challenging the conflation of the study of war and […]
The UK suffers from low electoral turnout, with young people in particular increasingly unlikely to turn out to vote in elections. At the same time, critics of our current electoral infrastructure highlight the risk of fraud. Here, Toby S. James, and Alistair Clark show that our polling and registration processes should be made simpler and […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Canadian general election last week brought to power a new government with a comfortable parliamentary majority. As in the UK general election in May, the vote/seat ratios of all parties were distorted in varying measure by the plurality vote system. Unlike in the UK, however, the winning party has promised an ambitious program of […]
Earlier this month, the Ministerial Code was amended so that it no longer makes reference to any obligation to comply with international law. Mark Elliott argues the new wording is an unhelpful oversimplification which raises fundamental questions about the relationship between different types of legal norms. Unless it were envisaged that the UK Parliament would legislate in a way that […]
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 […]
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. In responding to the piece, Jessica Studdert of the New Local Government Network looks at the potential for heightened engagement […]
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