Joanie Willett
Local elections have just taken place in the UK. Yet despite decades of devolution deals, and various iterations of 'Levelling Up', UK local government remains economically unequal and centralised. The US, by contrast is highly decentralised. Joanie Willett says we can learn from the US about the importance of capacity building, a vibrant civil society, and encouraging people to feel invested in their towns’ future Read more
Rongxin Li
An orthodoxy in conventional democratic theory says that voting is all that really matters. Rongxin Li challenges the prominence of electoralism and majoritarianism in representative democratic practice. He argues that consultative democracy confers far more legitimacy on a decision than voting ever can or will Read more
Niva Golan-Nadir
Niva Golan-Nadir examines the origins of alternative politics in the form of co-production of essential services. As an example, she looks at the provision of public transport services in Israel on the Sabbath. She models the way this comes about, how it works, and considers its implications for democracy Read more
Ryan Salzman
For Ryan Salzman, placemaking is a viable form of political participation that has the potential to meet or exceed some forms of traditional participation in democratic effectiveness. It is time we recognised these contemporary alternatives to traditional political participation so that we can truly understand twenty-first century democracy Read more
Christoph Arndt
Recent European elections have revealed that voters are increasingly polarised on environmental protectionism. Christoph Arndt, Daphne Halikiopoulou and Christos Vrakopoulos contend that local opposition to climate change measures is reinforcing a centre-periphery cleavage in Western Europe Read more
Fred Paxton
Italian populists’ focus on ‘the will of the people’ has frequently contradicted their ideological priorities towards migration, Fred Paxton and Andrea Pettrachin find. The perception of local attitudes to immigration and issue salience are the determining factors in how populists in local government make their decisions Read more
The Loop
Cutting-edge analysis showcasing the work of the political science discipline at its best.
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