Can a society be peaceful, prosperous, and happy when 25% of the population lack political rights on the national level? Uwe Serdült thinks not, and helped build an app to provide informal voting rights using an e-participation app for use in Swiss referendums. Although the app wasn’t a resounding success, it did provide an opportunity for disenfranchised […]
What impact would Britain leaving the EU have on UK immigration policy? Jonathan Portes writes that exiting the EU would not be a magic solution to immigration problems. For a start, the UK would have to accept an exit from the single market and make alternative plans. He argues that difficult policy questions would still remain, […]
The Northern Ireland government is in crisis, with the resignation of the First Minister Peter Robinson potentially seeing the power-sharing agreement between republicans and unionists heading for collapse. Neil Matthews, Christopher Raymond, and John Garry place recent events in the context of Jeremy Corbyn’s elevation to Labour leader, and argue that his status as being […]
The UK currently has dedicated European affairs committees in both houses of Parliament – despite the EU’s permeation into most areas of Government policy. Dr Julie Smith looks at examples from the Netherlands, from Ireland, and from the House of Lords and argues that the UK should follow the Dutch example, and share the European […]
Jeremy Corbyn was recently announced as the Leader of the Labour Party, surprising everybody in beating established candidates such as Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, despite having never held a frontbench role. His critics suppose that his status as an outsider, somewhat outside the mainstream of his parliamentary party, may mean that he has a […]
The revised edition of Danny Dorling’s book Injustice: Why Social Inequality Still Persists provides an analysis of contemporary issues and practices underpinning inequality and a concise interpretation of the main causes of the persistence of injustice in rich countries, together with possible solutions. Gaja Maestri finds that despite touching only marginally on broader scholarly debates, the book remains […]
The Labour government of 1997-2010 introduced pre-appointment hearings for some ministerial appointments, formalising a de facto system which had been developing gradually. Felicity Matthews shares research which shows that these hearings have created a new balance between the executive and parliament to an extent, but that there have been unintended consequences such as ‘scrutiny creep’ and […]
Following changes to the Labour leadership election procedures under Ed Miliband, critics claimed that this election would be swamped by affiliated members from the trade unions who could opt in to get a ballot (unlike the old system in which they were capped at a one third share). However, Mark Wickham-Jones finds that trade unionists came nowhere near playing the […]
The voting age for UK general elections is 18, meaning that 16 and 17 year olds aren’t eligible to vote, despite being adults for the majority of a five year parliament. Research has shown that it would be an effective tool in narrowing the UK’s turnout gap between old and young – the widest in […]
Jim Gallagher reflects on what the Scotland Bill tells us about the Scotland-UK relationship and devolution more broadly. He argues that the Bill presents a challenge to the unwritten constitution, and that now is the time to clarify and codify the territorial aspects to make a statement about how and why the Union hangs together. […]
Democratic Audit's core funding is provided by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Additional funding is provided by the London School of Economics.
This work by Democratic Audit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales.