In recent years there has been growing concern about the effectiveness and legitimacy of public decision making about risk, sparked by a series of high profile

Voter turnout was unusually high in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. At first glance, that level of participation—largely spurred by war in Iraq and a bur

Turbulent times challenge democratic politics and governance in Western countries. Party systems, in many instances, have failed to produce solutions to vital p

No political concept is more used, and misused, than that of democracy. Nearly every regime today claims to be democratic, but not all 'democracies' allow free

Can the citizens of a democracy be trusted to run it properly? Modern political science has concentrated on cataloguing voters’ failings—their lack of knowl