Author Description

"The current triumph of democracy has also brought to the fore its great vulnerability. There is rising dissatisfaction with the existing institutions of British democracy, and with the scope and degree of accountability they offer. This is reflected in declining levels of participation and falling party recruitment, but also in the emergence of a striking critical consensus across the political spectrum about the ills of democracy in Britain." "This collection of specially commissioned essays addresses this paradox, and sets out both to further the diagnosis and to suggest remedies to the difficulties which democracy faces in Britain. Unusually, it balances a commitment to expanding the imaginative boundaries of our thinking about democracy with a determination to offer quite practical suggestions for reforming existing institutions and practices. The essays deal with the depletion of the powers of local government and the rise of 'quangos'; with the erosion of democratic control by managerial and accounting techniques and the challenges to accountability posed by the new information technologies; with the economic limits to democracy, and the need to improve the accountability of both companies and associations within civil society, with the relationship between national democracy and the governance of the European Union; and with the shifting content of the idea of democracy." "Written by distinguished academics, journalists, politicians and activists, this volume brings together a wide range of perspectives, all of them directed towards the task of reinventing the unsettingly simple idea of democracy for a world which is becoming increasingly complex. It will appeal to all those concerned with British politics today, as well as to those interested in the future of democracy."--BOOK JACKET.