Matthew Barnfield
Political scientists use experimental methods to study cause-and-effect relationships in politics. Sometimes these approaches involve exposing people to false information about their political reality. Matthew Barnfield argues that this practice of misinformation is not only unethical, but also an ineffective way of learning about the political world Read more
Dawud Ansari
De-orientalising the scholarship on the Arab Gulf states is crucial, argues Dawud Ansari. Commentaries and datasets generalise them as ‘monarchies’, erasing vital differences between these countries. New terms are a starting point for transforming research on the wider region – an urgent objective given new crises and freshened global interest Read more
Avery Reyna
Social scientists are increasingly using quantitative interdisciplinary research methods in the hope of obtaining more nuanced, concrete findings. However, Avery Reyna argues that without proper foresight, relying on these approaches to describe interactions between people, countries, and more complex sociopolitical systems may be harmful to the field overall Read more
Phil Paine
Phil Paine is reminded of the caterpillar who, when asked in which order it moved each of its feet, found itself ‘distracted in a ditch, wondering how it walked’. He suspects that there are misapprehensions about the role of definitions in advancing democracy Read more
William Horncastle
Most nations employ some form of regulation on political finance. William Horncastle explores the different approaches that are taken and presents his recently published open access dataset on political finance systems: the Regulation of Political Finance Indicator Read more
Sonia Bussu
Sonia Bussu argues that the way we understand democracy has been colonised by ‘liberal democracy’ and capitalism. As a result, democracy is far removed from our daily lives. We need to free ourselves from these constraints to see the possible alternatives, which are embodied in democracy as a way of living Read more
Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux takes stock of the sciences of the democracies to argue that they offer helpful tools to contest the neoliberalisation of education and the teaching of democracy. The words of democracy, the ideas imbued in them, are vital resources for an age characterised by the desertification of public spheres Read more
Lucy J Parry
Lucy J Parry recognises the value of a database of democracy but is concerned about its utility in the real world. If this data mountain is to bolster democratic innovation, we need to step away from detached order and engage with the messy reality of democratic innovations in practice Read more
