Democracy, power and governance

Based on 'Participation in Courts and Tribunals: Concepts, Realities and Aspirations', edited by Jessica Jacobson and Penny Cooper, this briefing covers key messages and policy recommendations around what exactly it means to participate in judicial proceedings, why participation matters, and what factors impede and, conversely, support participation.…Read more

The editors of the European Journal of Politics and Gender discuss their curated student reading list featuring free articles from the journal across four key themes.…Read more

Pat Thomson, author of 'School Scandals: Blowing the whistle on the corruption of our education system', talks about the corruption of the UK education system, and the impact of this on democracy and children's lives.…Read more

Janice Morphet, author of upcoming book 'The Impact of COVID-19 on Devolution', discusses whether the pandemic has caused greater government recentralisation and where this recentralisation is headed.…Read more

Thomas Swann, author of 'Anarchist Cybernetics', discusses what social media used to be like for activists, how that has changed and why we need to take back control of our technology.…Read more

Keith Dowding talks through the arguments in his book, It's the Government, Stupid, including looking at individualism, choice, and how governments have passed blame and responsibility onto citizens during COVID-19.…Read more

Keith Dowding, author of 'It’s the Government, Stupid', discusses the UK government's ‘war against obesity’ and how the cause of the obesity crisis is lack of government action on the root causes, not individual people's decisions.…Read more

Naomi Eisenstadt, co-author of 'Parents, Poverty and the State', explains some of the structural barriers academics face when trying to influence government, and offers some tips for overcoming them.…Read more

Leigh Gardner and Tirthankar Roy, authors of 'The Economic History of Colonialism', examine the relationship between colonialism and economic development, and challenge the assumption that the way colonial governments worked, and the effects that they left behind, had more to do with the aims and capacities of European states than with the regions they ruled over.…Read more

Andrew Ryder, author of 'Britain and Europe at a Crossroads', discusses the history that allowed Brexit to take place, and outlines a way forward from this point.…Read more