The Constitution Unit

Attitudes to Democracy in the UK Today

Episode Summary

How do people in the UK view democracy? How do they think UK democracy ought to operate?

Episode Notes

How do people in the UK view democracy? How do they think UK democracy ought to operate? What roles do they think should be played by parliament, government, the courts, and the public themselves? How do such attitudes vary across the population, and what shapes them?

The Constitution Unit has just embarked on a major new research project – Democracy in the UK after Brexit – that seeks answers to such questions. But what do we already know on these matters? What do we not know? And what can we learn from research conducted in other countries about the best ways to find out more? In this seminar, Alan Renwick – who leads the new project – will explore these questions with three of the leading experts in the field.

Speakers:

• Professor Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics, and Director of the Nuffield Politics Research Centre, University of Oxford
• Professor Claudia Landwehr, Professor of Public Policy, Department of Political Science, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz
• Deborah Mattinson, Co-founder of opinion research agency Britain Thinks, and former pollster to Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister

Chair: Dr Alan Renwick, Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit and Project Lead for Democracy in the UK after Brexit.