Reform can make us bothered about democracy

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Moderator: This is a response to a speech made by Meg Russell at an ippr fringe meeting in September. The speech itself is reproduced here.

Stuart Weir (Cambridge, Democratic Audit): Meg Russell is one of the few people who manage to carry out empirical research on British democracy that has a political point whilst thinking more deeply about the longer-term implications of what is actually happening. At a recent IPPR meeting at the Labour Party conference she asked, "Are we bovvered about renewing democracy?" and then said the first place to look in answering this question was at the opinion polls.

I think her brief analysis of the polls was flawed. But put that aside - let's move on. Meg confessed to concern about the constant focus on reform for two reasons. First, it can be a kind of displacement activity: "By focussing on constitutional tinkering we risk not facing the bigger cultural forces which seem to me the root of disengagement". And second, by consistently talking about the inadequacies of our political institutions, we (whoever we are? are "we" a community?) risk fuelling the very disillusionment we're seeking to address: "if we want people to be more 'bovvered' about politics there may be wider and more difficult cultural changes we need to bring about."

Well, yes. In our international work on the assessment of democracy at Essex, we have found evidence of a disparity between the views of expert communities and people at large, the latter being more satisfied than the "wankers and whingers" (Neil Kinnock's ringing phrase) who joined Charter 88 in the 1990s. But what if our institutions and practices actually are "inadequate"? What if they fail to produce a representative Parliament, or suffocate local democracy, or are compromised by subservience to big business, or perpetuate social exclusions, or are prone to policy disasters (the poll tax, rail privatisation, the war, to mention a few)? Meg says that we should point out the truth. Why then not do so and seek remedies?

But sure, too, let's agree that we have to keep a wider perspective. There are major issues and trends within which democracy has to work. We have to accept that it is hard to make democracy, a collective enterprise, seem more relevant in an individualistic society, especially when the political parties converge upon their own form of consumer appeal. And let's argue for reform with the kind of honesty Meg enjoins: democracy is "not like shopping. It's imperfect, it's frustrating, we can't all win. But that's the nature of it, and it's the best system we've got."

[1] For a recent example see Peter Tatchell, 'Voting corruption thwarts democracy', Tribune, 28th September 2007. This suggested, in arguing for a change to the voting system, that "This wholesale voting sham is reminiscent of the gerrymandering and ballot-rigging of two centuries ago.This is political corruption on a monumental scale. It represents a perversion of the popular will and a subversion of democracy itself."

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