Democracy in the United Kingdom

Despondency has afflicted many recent assessments of democracy. Observers have found a clear tendency over a sustained period towards authoritarianism, across different metrics and parts of the world. It has included within it both states which are already of a firmly autocratic nature, and those which became more democratic relatively recently, and are perhaps regarded as somewhat vulnerable to reversals. But this trend of deterioration has also extended to countries in which democracy was believed to be more deeply embedded, including the United Kingdom. The perceived problem is on a scale which suggests a need to reassess existing understandings. Democracy and the way in which it develops are conceived of to a significant extent on a basis of the past: what trajectories of development have been, and what has driven them. For this reason, revisiting history offers potential to help us both in appreciating the challenges we face and in developing our approaches towards them. Within this broad project, there is value in a particular focus on the history of England and the United Kingdom. Democracy in the United Kingdom carries out such an assessment. It takes a long and broad view of the democracy in the United Kingdom, drawing on a diverse range of sources. Blick interrogates existing assumptions and makes a series of proposals to inform promoters of democracy around the world today.