Keith Sutherland (Exeter, Imprint Academic): Imprint Academic’s new book series on political lotteries and citizen juries is launched this week. The series is our response to the growing sense that the institutions of liberal party democracy are damaged beyond repair. The 1997 election was a watershed as it was quite obvious that Labour was prepared to say anything in order to win power. From then on political parties would no longer ‘represent’ anything other than the whims of a few thousand swing voters in key marginals, leaving everybody else, in effect, disenfranchised.  Read the rest of this post...

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): The government will be rewarding fresh ideas for getting people involved in democracy under a £150,000 scheme aimed at all charities, community groups and NGOs. Launched today, the Innovation Fund will award grants to projects aimed at "developing new ways to help people participate in public discussions and influence government policy." For any OK readers who think they have an idea that qualifies (and I've certainly read a few in the comments) this has to be worth a shot. Previous winners include Speakers' Corner Trust, which established a speakers' corner in Nottingham, and the South Kesteven District Council, which developed a process for online citizens' juries. Another successful project was FixMyStreet website which allows people to tell their local authority and others in their area about broken civic infrastructure. Users post photos of the problem on the website and tag a map to provide its location. The website then forwards the report to the appropriate authority. To get involved go to www.buildingdemocracy.co.uk. And do let us know how you get on. Applications close 26 September 2008.

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): Jack Straw has today published the Government's white paper on reform of the House of Lords. The proposals call for a chamber which is 80-100 per cent elected, with members serving a single non-renewable 12-15 year term and a third of the chamber retiring at each election One key point that emerged from Anthony Barnett's discussion with David Marquand below is that the choice of electoral system is likely to be crucial, not just to the future of the second chamber, but to the case for reform of the Commons.The White Paper leaves that issue very much open:  Read the rest of this post...

As the Government announces plans for a reformed House of Lords, David Marquand and Anthony Barnett discuss whether a new chamber should be chosen by lottery. David Marquand (Oxford): At first sight, the idea of ‘sortition’ for the reformed House of Lords (or Senators or whatever) is attractive. But when you reflect on it it becomes distinctly unattractive.Here’s why: First (a minor – but still significant – tactical objection), It clearly won’t happen; and it’s a mistake for constitutional reformers to give the impression that whatever the Government proposes they will be against. Second (and much more serious): The main point of having an elected Second Chamber is to give it democratic legitimacy, so as to make it a stronger check on abuses of power by the elective dictator who controls the Lower House. Whatever may have been true in ancient Athens – not really a democracy, remember, since slaves, women and foreigners couldn’t participate – in today’s world democratic election is the only source of democratic legitimacy. An upper house chosen, in effect, by chance would be less legitimate than the Commons, not more. It would be a permanent focus group, as far removed from true democracy as the Government’s proposed Citizen’s Summit.  Read the rest of this post...

Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): Is there a 'mental Berlin Wall' that separates unease about democratic issues such as 'executive dominance of Parliament, the unreformed House of Lords, the obsolete parliamentary election system, 42 days and the data-base state' from concern over the existence of 'local government that is neither "local" nor "government."'? That at any rate is the view of Stuart Weir, Director of Democratic Audit, who led the discussion at Wednesday's CAOS (Combining All Our Strengths) seminar for civil society organisations.  Stuart described  domination by Whitehall managerialism, a complexity of structures and the financial and constitutional weakness of local government to ask, "Is democratic accountability at local level possible?  Is there space for genuine participation, and if so, is it confined to a very low level at which government is willing to tolerate ordinary people getting involved?'  As it happens, the seminar coincided with a white paper on community engagement that illustrates how uneasy Whitehall is about any ideas that might break the managerial mould.  Read the rest of this post...

The Edge of Heaven, directed by Fatih Akin, is a carefully crafted, tender account of six interwoven lives. Ali is a effervescent Turkish expatriate living in Germany with his bookish son Nejat. The film begins with Ali inviting Yeter, a Turkish prostitute, to become his live-in girlfriend - much to Nejat's dismay. Yet Nejat quickly gains respect for the grim but kind hearted Yeter and after her sudden death, he returns to Turkey to search for her daughter Ayten. Ayten meanwhile, is a defiant political activist desperately refuge in Germany after an encounter with the Turkish police. Penniless and homeless, she is taken in by a German student named Lotte and her disapproving mother. When Ayten's asylum plea is rejected, Lotte follows Ayten to Istanbul to help secure her release from prison.  Read the rest of this post...

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): Just how old fashioned the principles of representative democracy have become for government ministers is beautifully encapsulated in a brief report on the politics of the third runway at Heathrow by Nicholas Watt in the Guardian (Tuesday 17 June). Watt says that David Cameron was signalling that a Conservative government is likely to block the third runway at Heathrow in a subtly evasive environmental speech and castigated Gordon Brown for his pig-headed pursuit of this project. The response of government ministers shocked me. For them his apparent opposition "shows he has yet to move from being an opposition politician to a prime minister -in-waiting. They say as prime minister he would face the pressures they face: from the City to improve Heathrow and from the airlines to ensure that Heathrow acts as a European hub." I suppose that we should appreciate such openness about whom they feel accountable to, and I know it anyway.  Read the rest of this post...

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): At the end of his Telegraph article Philip Johnston sums up the English Question rather well: "It is about identity and governance." Which makes it all the more surprising that he bills the Democracy Task Force's recommendations as "an answer to the English Question." Read the rest of this post...

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): With the closure of Goonhilly Earth Station, are the Cornish ever going to look to the stars again? As a recognized level 1 European region with devolved government that could be something we decide for ourselves. Introducing one possible option - NEREUS - a network of European Regions working hand in hand on the development and use of space technologies in Europe. The European Regions are heavily involved at both ends of the space chain, from infrastructures to applications. Read the rest of this post...

Jon Bright (London, OK): It's been interesting to watch the writing coming out of the House of Lords blog, which is managing to quickly dispel my initial cynicism about the project (as someone naturally inclined to be cynical about people described as "Lords"). Despite the launch of the (admittedly very flash looking) Politics Home, I think it's this very simple Wordpress blog that has been the most interesting recent addition to the British "blogosphere." They're producing a good frequency of posts about a range of topics, from a number of different people, in a personal, open style - even responding seriously to their commenters. And the subject matter - both what Lords think, and what it is like to be one, couldn't be more perfectly suited to the blog format. Read the rest of this post...

Andrew Blick on Swimming with the tide: Democraticisng the places where we work by Chris Ward and Zoe Williams, Compass. (Swimming with the tide, Compass, March 2008, 34pp) Why is it that attempts to expand human rights into the workplace are so often regarded as justifiable only on grounds of economic efficiency? Many of us spend a large part of our lives at work, meaning that a denial of our basic entitlements while there has serious implications for our overall quality of live. As this authoritative work by Chris Ward and Zoe Williams puts it, the government "must signal the importance of workplace democracy - not just on economic grounds but by making the democratic case for it." Read the rest of this post...

John Palmer (London): For too long serious political debate about the future development of the European Union has been distorted by the constant mantra from populists, euro-sceptics and others about opposing "rule by unelected Brussels bureaucrats." Although this is a gross distortion of the reality - that decisions are taken by elected governments and an elected European Parliament - the fact that the President and other members of the European Commission (which cannot pass laws but does propose legislation) have always been appointed rather than elected has been an embarrassment. Read the rest of this post...

Ivo Mosley (Exeter, imprint academic at the Political Studies Association Conference): Spending two days in academe has stimulated me to some reflections. There is no doubt that, with funding now dependent upon government, academia has been suborned as an intellectual regiment in the army of Western hegemony. This can seem puzzling. Specifically, how does the dominant culture in academia, political correctness, serve Western domination? Read the rest of this post...

Jon Bright (London, OK): Thomas Hobbes' definition of life without the state, the Leviathan, was published in 1651 - but it was based on a document written eleven years previously, during the English Civil War. Hobbes was a royalist - or, at least, he kept company with many exiled royalists in Paris - and it's unsurprising that his theory of the state, needed to keep humans from tearing each other apart, provides somewhat of a foundation for royal (autocratic) rule. Read the rest of this post...

Ivo Mosley (Exeter, imprint academic at the Political Studies Association Conference): So, what other important issues can I get to the bottom of? A multicultural debate with Tariq Modood - sounds good, so along I go. There is a conflict, we are told, between the ideal of multiculturalism and the need for national identity - or 'community cohesion' as it's referred to by those to whom ‘nation' is a dirty word. Various citizen tests are examined, most of which would exclude most of us born in Britain. Read the rest of this post...

Ivo Mosley (Exeter, imprint academic at the Political Studies Association Swansea ) With the idea that a general decline in ‘democracy’ is on many people’s minds, I search for a panel on the issue. I find one - on the need for popular participation to bring democracy back to life - and after a walk down many corridors I get to a small room inhabited by eight of the conference’s thousand-odd participants. I learn of the heroic efforts of the Scots and their parliament. Gordon Heggie describes his attempts to hold the Scottish Parliament true to its promises of encouraging popular participation in government. To the elected representatives this means being available for a chat, but Heggie’s idea is of citizens’ forums discussing issues and the results being fed into the political process. His attempts meet with failure, he reports: the representatives treat civic forums as competition; electoral representation and popular democracy, it seems, are oil and water. For representatives to encourage popular participation would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. Read the rest of this post...

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Iain Dale has just written a striking lament about the disgrace of sham consultations. Those who succeed in getting elected as MPs can feel like this too, and we know what it is like for the rest of us. It raises the question of who takes decisions and how they do so - leaving aside why. In part it is the hypocrisy of the process that is so galling. It would be much better with planning decisions if those in authority said: "We want to take this decision, for this reason, to achieve this objective, we know that these people will not like it, we are proposing this compensation and now we are having a consultation in which we will listen especially to those who can suggest a better way of achieving our aim by other means." Instead, we get the evasions, dishonesty, and distortions that drive people to direct action. See Katrina Forrester's post in OK about the Plane Stupid demo on the roof of the Commons after the "consultation" on the Heathrow third runway which did not allow members of the public to let it be known if they were against it. Which, as she puts it, shows, "the extent to which Government strives to keep people impotent".

Jon Bright (London, OK): One of the interesting aspects of the new EU treaty is the institution of citizens' initiatives and petitions - of which Grahnlaw has an excellent and detailed dissection here. Initiatives with the support of at least 1 million EU citizens can be submitted to the European Commission, which can then turn them into proposals. Read the rest of this post...

John Jackson (London, Mishcon de Reya & Unlock Democracy): "Setting the People Free" is the title of the book, published in 2005, in which John Dunn explored the long history of the word "Democracy" and its different meanings at different times. At the end of his journey he asked this question, "Why did the Strong select the word Democracy to name the form of government which has served them best of all?" By "Strong" he meant those who have benefited most from capitalism. And the form of government he had in mind is what we know as representative democracy. Read the rest of this post...

Katrina Forrester (London, Plane Stupid): On Wednesday five climate activists from the direct action group Plane Stupid took democracy to the rooftops of Parliament. The banners they erected highlighted the collusion between the British Airport Authority (BAA) and the Department for Transport. The 27th February marked the end of the public consultation period within which opinions could be voiced about the construction of the Third Runway at Heathrow - a period which should have been a chance for the public to engage with the democratic process and to make clear their objections to the Heathrow expansion plans. The reality is a different story, and Plane Stupid wanted not only to expose the farcical nature of the Heathrow consultation, but also to draw attention to the failings of our so-called democracy. Read the rest of this post...