Given I now have a bit more time on my hands, I plan to spend my time working on institution-building for democracy.
I’m also planning to catch up with several years’ worth of Things I Really Should Have Read Earlier. The COVID-19 lockdown presents an opportunity to try to get through some it.
I wanted to pile all the readings / open tabs / PDFs hidden in my inbox / books on my wishlist / e-books buried on my Kindle into one place, so I could get a sense of what to read.
I thought I’d post it in case it was useful for anyone else. Further recommendations or summaries, especially summaries, welcome…
Reading in the time of coronavirus
Having done a load of global health governance reading in a previous life, I’m more interested in the effects of the virus on UK politics and policy. One interesting bit is that basic income seems more relevant than ever. What happened to those trials in Finland etc?
- Book: Battling Eight Giants (2020), Guy Standing.
- Website: The Basic Income Conversation and accompanying blogpost. (EDIT: Vox have the best piece on the trials so far)
Food systems seem pretty relevant too (along with community and ending loneliness):
- Website: National Food Service.
- Website: National Food Strategy.
There’s a lot of harking back to WW2 going on, so I’ve fast-tracked these three to the top of the book list:
- Book: Austerity Britain (2007), David Kynaston.
- Book: The Road to 1945 (1994), Paul Addison.
- Book: The Future of Socialism (1956), Anthony Crosland.
Reading on UK governance and democracy
General
- Book: In Defence of Politics (1962, 2002), Bernard Crick.
- Book: Now We Have Your Attention: The New Politics of the People (2019), Jack Shenker.
- Paper: Liberal Democracy’s Crisis of Confidence, Wike & Fetterolf.
- Report: Edelman Trust Barometer 2020.
- Report: Democracy International, Annual Report 2019.
- Report: The Good Parliament, Sarah Childs.
- Report: Designing Democracy, Design Council.
- Website: Centre for the Future of Democracy.
Constitutional reform
- Book: Revolutionary Constitutions (2019), Bruce Ackerman.
- Report: Citizens Convention on UK Democracy: A User’s Manual, Allen et al.
- Report: Blueprint for a UK Constitutional Convention, Constitution Unit.
- Website: Centre for Constitutional Change.
- Website: Conservative Policy Forum on ‘Sustaining Democracy’
- Video: The Johnson government’s constitutional reform agenda: prospects and challenges, Constitution Unit.
Technology
- Book: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019) Shoshana Zuboff.
- Book: The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy, Paolo Gerbaudo.
- Report: Online Harms White Paper, HMG.
- Report: Online targeting: Final report and recommendations, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.
- Report: Election Risk Monitor (Canada), CIGI.
- Report: Digital Select Committees, Nesta.
- Report: Digital Tools for Citizen Assemblies, mySociety.
- Website: Commission on Tech & Democracy, Chatham House.
- Website: A timeline of Civic Tech, Civic Hall.
Devolution
- Book: English Nationalism: A Short History (2018), Jeremy Black.
- Report: Make No Little Plans – Acting At Scale For A Fairer And Stronger Future, UK 2070 Commission.
- Report: Has Devolution Worked?, IfG.
- Report: The Future for Communities: Perspectives on power, Local Trust.
- Website: Constitutional Reform Group.
- Website: Governing England, British Academy.
- Wiki: Scottish Constitutional Convention.
Participation / deliberation
- Report: Participation at 45 degrees: techniques for citizen-led change, Compass.
- Report: Civic Participation, World Economic Forum.
- Website: XR Future Democracy Hub, Extinction Rebellion.
- Website: Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Reform in Germany.
- Website: Campaign for Deliberative Democracy, RSA.
Electoral reform
- Book: From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting (2019), Judith Brett.
- Paper: The local roots of the participation gap: Inequality and voter turnout, Bartle et al.
- Report: Feasibility studies [inc on auto voter reg], The Electoral Commision.
- Website: To Build A Better Ballot, Nicky Case.
Climate
- Report: How did we do that? Possibilities of rapid transition, Simms & Newell.
- Website: The Future of Democracy in the Face of Climate Change, FDSD.
Media
- Report: Centre for Community Journalism, Annual Report 2019.
- Website: Public Interest News Foundation.
- Website: Govt Response to Cairncross Review.
Education
- Report: Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools, Bernard Crick.
- Website: Five Nations Network.
Metrics for democracy
- Report: The Global State of Democracy 2019, IDEA.
- Blogpost: In comparative league tables of liberal democracies the UK’s democracy is judged to be First Division, but not Premier League, Democratic Audit.
- Website: V-Dem, Varieties of Democracy Institute, Gothenburg.
Might keep me going until September. 😬
Further suggestions welcome over twitter.
Photo: Susan Yin, Unsplash.
