Jeremy Corbyn’s probably ascent to the Leadership of the Labour Party has called into question the role of party discipline in running an effective opposition, with some even suggested that enforced voting, or ‘whipping’ could be suspended under his leadership. Jason Kitkat, who had the challenge of leading a Council while a member of the […]
A new book by Emma Jackson explores how young homeless Londoners experience and negotiate the city and the homeless system. One important issue they face is whether they have access to the welfare state, as place of origin and migration status have impacts on what can be accessed and by whom. Similar PostsGeneral election 2019: preview of LondonEuropean […]
In recent years, the European Union appears to have been in perennial fire-fighting mode. During this time, there has been a noted decline in the public’s trust for EU institutions. Here, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi argues that while more accountability is important, the main thing that the EU can do to regain lost trust is to perform […]
Political scientists have been trying to understand how political campaigns affect voter turnout for decades. Now, with the rise and ubiquity of social media platforms such as Facebook, those who study political campaigns have access to a new and potentially vast data source on voters’ intentions. In new research, Jaime Settle analyses over 100 million […]
In the United States, boundaries for the House of Representatives and many states are decided by the membership themselves rather than an independent commission (as is the case in the UK and many other European democracies). Reformers in the United States argue that the commission based model is superior and that it would act as […]
The European Union, and its forerunner organisations, have never achieved popularity in the UK, and even in Europe there are signs that public opinion may be turning against it. Nils Röper argues that in order to foster a shared appreciation of the EU’s history, and its role in uniting a divided and war-torn continent, a […]
Democracy promotion is an integral component of European foreign policy. However, European democracy promotion is less effective than assumed and hoped for. Sonja Grimm offers four explanations: (1) the absence of a consensus among democracy promoters about policy objectives, and the interference of hidden agendas, (2) the neglect of rational interests of domestic actors, (3) […]
Yesterday’s new peerage appointments attracted almost universal criticism for further adding to the inexorable growth in size of the House of Lords under David Cameron. But could the gradual erosion of the Lords’ reputation actually benefit the government by weakening parliament? Might it even be a deliberate plan? And – given that the Prime Minister […]
To what extent do electoral gender quotas change voters’ preference for male or female political candidates? Silvia Erzeel and Didier Caluwaerts examine the electoral evidence from Belgium, a country that has progressively adopted gender quota laws since the mid-1990s. They show that although the largest group of Belgian voters now vote for both male and […]
The Hungarian Government, led by the Prime Minister Vicktor Orban has made waves for its authoritarian tendencies and stated ambition to create an ‘illiberal’ democracy. In response to the government’s censorship of the press, a protest group named Milla emerged, which had some success in organising campaigns against the government’s more nefarious tendencies. However, in […]
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