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This book offers a sharp, critical analysis of the rise and fall of the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong, including prior events like Occupy Central and the Mongkok Fishball Revolution, as well as their aftermaths in light of the re-assertion of mainland sovereignty over the SAR. Reading the conflict against the grain of those who would romanticize it or simply condemn it in nationalistic fashion, Vukovich goes beyond mediatized discourse to disentangle its roots in the Basic Law system as well as in the colonial and insufficiently post-colonial contexts and dynamics of Hong Kong. He examines the question of localist identity and its discontents, the problems of nativism, violence, and liberalism, the impossibility of autonomy, and what forms a genuine de-colonization can and might yet take in the city. A concluding chapter examines Hong Kong’s need for state capacity and proper, livelihood development, in the light of the Omicron wave of the Covid pandemic, as the SAR goes forward into a second handover era.
Book Synopsis After Autonomy: A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong’s first Handover, 1997–2019 by : Daniel F. Vukovich
Download or read book After Autonomy: A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong’s first Handover, 1997–2019 written by Daniel F. Vukovich and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-09-22 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a sharp, critical analysis of the rise and fall of the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong, including prior events like Occupy Central and the Mongkok Fishball Revolution, as well as their aftermaths in light of the re-assertion of mainland sovereignty over the SAR. Reading the conflict against the grain of those who would romanticize it or simply condemn it in nationalistic fashion, Vukovich goes beyond mediatized discourse to disentangle its roots in the Basic Law system as well as in the colonial and insufficiently post-colonial contexts and dynamics of Hong Kong. He examines the question of localist identity and its discontents, the problems of nativism, violence, and liberalism, the impossibility of autonomy, and what forms a genuine de-colonization can and might yet take in the city. A concluding chapter examines Hong Kong’s need for state capacity and proper, livelihood development, in the light of the Omicron wave of the Covid pandemic, as the SAR goes forward into a second handover era.
"In asking the question, "what were we/they trying to 'free' Hong Kong into?" Vukovich invites readers to reject the doxa of negative freedom "from" that lies at the heart of contemporary financialized societies, and to start asking questions about the social practices and political economy that sustains it. This gesture makes it possible to discern the ideological effects of the vaunted opposition between freedom and autocracy ostensibly assumed to lie at the root of today's global political struggles, of which Hong Kong would be the avatar." -Jon Solomon, Professor of Chinese Studies, Université Jean Moulin "Daniel Vukovich's After Autonomy is a blistering critique of Hong Kong's troubled decolonization since 1997, but especially after Occupy Central in 2014 and even more so with the anti-extradition bill protests in 2019 and the enactment of the National Security Law in 2020. Rejecting the "death of Hong Kong" myth, Vukovich explores both the promise and the disappointment of the first twenty-five years of "one country, two systems". It is a powerful reminder that, although far from dead, Hong Kong is also far from healthy." -John M. Carroll, author of The Hong Kong-China Nexus: A Brief History This book offers a sharp, critical analysis of the rise and fall of the 2019 antiextradition bill movement in Hong Kong, including prior events like Occupy Central and the Mongkok Fishball Revolution, as well as their aftermaths in light of the re-assertion of mainland sovereignty over the SAR. Reading the conflict against the grain of those who would romanticize it or simply condemn it in nationalistic fashion, Vukovich goes beyond mediatized discourse to disentangle its roots in the Basic Law system as well as in the colonial and insufficiently postcolonial contexts and dynamics of Hong Kong. He examines the question of localist identity and its discontents, the problems of nativism, violence, and liberalism, the impossibility of autonomy, and what forms a genuine decolonization can and might yet take in the city. A concluding chapter examines Hong Kong's need for state capacity and proper, livelihood development, in the light of the Omicron wave of the Covid pandemic, as the SAR goes forward into a second handover era. Daniel F. Vukovich is tenured at Hong Kong University, a Visiting Professor of Politics at East China Normal University, and an Advisory Research Fellow at South East University, Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. His book Illiberal China: The Ideological Challenge of the P.R.C. was published by Palgrave in 2019. His first book was China and Orientalism (Routledge, 2012), and he publishes widely in inter-disciplinary post-colonial and global studies of China and the West. .
Book Synopsis After Autonomy: A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong's First Handover, 1997-2019 by : Daniel F. Vukovich
Download or read book After Autonomy: A Post-Mortem for Hong Kong's First Handover, 1997-2019 written by Daniel F. Vukovich and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In asking the question, "what were we/they trying to 'free' Hong Kong into?" Vukovich invites readers to reject the doxa of negative freedom "from" that lies at the heart of contemporary financialized societies, and to start asking questions about the social practices and political economy that sustains it. This gesture makes it possible to discern the ideological effects of the vaunted opposition between freedom and autocracy ostensibly assumed to lie at the root of today's global political struggles, of which Hong Kong would be the avatar." -Jon Solomon, Professor of Chinese Studies, Université Jean Moulin "Daniel Vukovich's After Autonomy is a blistering critique of Hong Kong's troubled decolonization since 1997, but especially after Occupy Central in 2014 and even more so with the anti-extradition bill protests in 2019 and the enactment of the National Security Law in 2020. Rejecting the "death of Hong Kong" myth, Vukovich explores both the promise and the disappointment of the first twenty-five years of "one country, two systems". It is a powerful reminder that, although far from dead, Hong Kong is also far from healthy." -John M. Carroll, author of The Hong Kong-China Nexus: A Brief History This book offers a sharp, critical analysis of the rise and fall of the 2019 antiextradition bill movement in Hong Kong, including prior events like Occupy Central and the Mongkok Fishball Revolution, as well as their aftermaths in light of the re-assertion of mainland sovereignty over the SAR. Reading the conflict against the grain of those who would romanticize it or simply condemn it in nationalistic fashion, Vukovich goes beyond mediatized discourse to disentangle its roots in the Basic Law system as well as in the colonial and insufficiently postcolonial contexts and dynamics of Hong Kong. He examines the question of localist identity and its discontents, the problems of nativism, violence, and liberalism, the impossibility of autonomy, and what forms a genuine decolonization can and might yet take in the city. A concluding chapter examines Hong Kong's need for state capacity and proper, livelihood development, in the light of the Omicron wave of the Covid pandemic, as the SAR goes forward into a second handover era. Daniel F. Vukovich is tenured at Hong Kong University, a Visiting Professor of Politics at East China Normal University, and an Advisory Research Fellow at South East University, Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. His book Illiberal China: The Ideological Challenge of the P.R.C. was published by Palgrave in 2019. His first book was China and Orientalism (Routledge, 2012), and he publishes widely in inter-disciplinary post-colonial and global studies of China and the West. .
The story of the recent uprisings that sought to change the world - and what comes next From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. IF WE BURN is a stirring work of history built around a single, vital question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for? From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine’s Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. He draws on four years of research and hundreds of interviews conducted around the world, as well as his own strange experiences in Brazil, where a progressive-led protest explosion led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon. Careful investigation reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change is gravely misguided. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future.
Book Synopsis If We Burn by : Vincent Bevins
Download or read book If We Burn written by Vincent Bevins and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the recent uprisings that sought to change the world - and what comes next From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. IF WE BURN is a stirring work of history built around a single, vital question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for? From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine’s Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. He draws on four years of research and hundreds of interviews conducted around the world, as well as his own strange experiences in Brazil, where a progressive-led protest explosion led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon. Careful investigation reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change is gravely misguided. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future.
Disorienting Politics mines 21st-century media artifacts—including films like The Martian and TV/streaming media shows such as Firefly and House of Cards—to make visible the economic, cultural, political, and ecological entanglements of China and the United States. Describing these transpacific entanglements as “Chimerica”—coined by economic historians to reference the symbiosis of China and America—Yang examines how Chimerican media, originating in the US but traversing national boundaries in their production, circulation, and consumption, co-create the figure of rising China and extend a political imagination beyond the conventional ground of the nation. Examining how Chimerican media are shaped by and perpetuate uneven power relations, Disorienting Politics argues that the pervasive tendency among wide-ranging cultural producers to depict the Chinese state as a racialized Other in American media life diminishes the possibility of engaging transpacific entanglements as a basis for envisioning new political horizons. Such othering of China not only results in overt racism against people of Asian descent, Yang argues, but also impacts the wellbeing of people of color more generally. This interdisciplinary book demonstrates the ways in which race is embedded in geopolitics even when the subject of discussion is not the people, but the (Chinese) state. Bridging media and cultural studies, Asian and Asian American studies, geography, and globalization studies, Disorienting Politics calls for a relational politics that acknowledges the multifarious interconnectivity between people, places, media, and environment.
Book Synopsis Disorienting Politics by : Fan Yang
Download or read book Disorienting Politics written by Fan Yang and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2024-06-03 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disorienting Politics mines 21st-century media artifacts—including films like The Martian and TV/streaming media shows such as Firefly and House of Cards—to make visible the economic, cultural, political, and ecological entanglements of China and the United States. Describing these transpacific entanglements as “Chimerica”—coined by economic historians to reference the symbiosis of China and America—Yang examines how Chimerican media, originating in the US but traversing national boundaries in their production, circulation, and consumption, co-create the figure of rising China and extend a political imagination beyond the conventional ground of the nation. Examining how Chimerican media are shaped by and perpetuate uneven power relations, Disorienting Politics argues that the pervasive tendency among wide-ranging cultural producers to depict the Chinese state as a racialized Other in American media life diminishes the possibility of engaging transpacific entanglements as a basis for envisioning new political horizons. Such othering of China not only results in overt racism against people of Asian descent, Yang argues, but also impacts the wellbeing of people of color more generally. This interdisciplinary book demonstrates the ways in which race is embedded in geopolitics even when the subject of discussion is not the people, but the (Chinese) state. Bridging media and cultural studies, Asian and Asian American studies, geography, and globalization studies, Disorienting Politics calls for a relational politics that acknowledges the multifarious interconnectivity between people, places, media, and environment.
This book argues that there is a new, Sinological form of orientalism at work in the world. It has shifted from a logic of ‘essential difference’ to one of ‘sameness’ or general equivalence. "China" is now in a halting but inevitable process of becoming-the-same as the USA and the West. Orientalism is now closer to the cultural logic of capitalism, even as it shows the afterlives of colonial discourse. This shift reflects our era of increasing globalization; the migration of orientalism to area studies and the pax Americana; the liberal triumph at the "end" of history and the demonization of Maoism; an ever closer Sino-West relationship; and the overlapping of anti-communist and colonial discourses. To make the case for this re-constitution of orientalism, this work offers an inter-disciplinary analysis of the China field broadly defined. Vukovich takes on specialist work on the politics, governance, and history of the Mao and reform eras, from the Great Leap Forward to Tiananmen, 1989; the Western study of Chinese film; recent work in critical theory which turns on ‘the China-reference"; and other global texts about or from China. Through extensive analysis, the production of Sinological knowledge is shown to be of a piece with Western global intellectual political culture. This work will be of great interest to scholars of Asian, postcolonial and cultural studies.
Book Synopsis China and Orientalism by : Daniel Vukovich
Download or read book China and Orientalism written by Daniel Vukovich and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that there is a new, Sinological form of orientalism at work in the world. It has shifted from a logic of ‘essential difference’ to one of ‘sameness’ or general equivalence. "China" is now in a halting but inevitable process of becoming-the-same as the USA and the West. Orientalism is now closer to the cultural logic of capitalism, even as it shows the afterlives of colonial discourse. This shift reflects our era of increasing globalization; the migration of orientalism to area studies and the pax Americana; the liberal triumph at the "end" of history and the demonization of Maoism; an ever closer Sino-West relationship; and the overlapping of anti-communist and colonial discourses. To make the case for this re-constitution of orientalism, this work offers an inter-disciplinary analysis of the China field broadly defined. Vukovich takes on specialist work on the politics, governance, and history of the Mao and reform eras, from the Great Leap Forward to Tiananmen, 1989; the Western study of Chinese film; recent work in critical theory which turns on ‘the China-reference"; and other global texts about or from China. Through extensive analysis, the production of Sinological knowledge is shown to be of a piece with Western global intellectual political culture. This work will be of great interest to scholars of Asian, postcolonial and cultural studies.
Against the dire consequences of China’s market development, a new intellectual force of the New Left has come on the scene since the mid 1990s. New Left intellectuals debate the issues of social justice, distributive equality, markets, state intervention, the socialist legacy, and sustainable development. Against the neoliberal trends of free markets, liberal democracy, and consumerism, New Left critics launched a critique in hopes of seeking an alternative to global capitalism. This volume takes a comprehensive look at China’s New Left in intellectual, cultural, and literary manifestations. The writers place the New Left within a global anti-hegemonic movement and the legacy of the Cold War. They discover grassroots literature that portrays the plight and resilience of the downtrodden and disadvantaged. With historical visions the writers also shed light on the present by drawing on the socialist past.
Book Synopsis China and New Left Visions by : Jie Lu
Download or read book China and New Left Visions written by Jie Lu and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-07-20 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the dire consequences of China’s market development, a new intellectual force of the New Left has come on the scene since the mid 1990s. New Left intellectuals debate the issues of social justice, distributive equality, markets, state intervention, the socialist legacy, and sustainable development. Against the neoliberal trends of free markets, liberal democracy, and consumerism, New Left critics launched a critique in hopes of seeking an alternative to global capitalism. This volume takes a comprehensive look at China’s New Left in intellectual, cultural, and literary manifestations. The writers place the New Left within a global anti-hegemonic movement and the legacy of the Cold War. They discover grassroots literature that portrays the plight and resilience of the downtrodden and disadvantaged. With historical visions the writers also shed light on the present by drawing on the socialist past.
As a former British colony (1842-1997) and then a Special Administrative Region (from 1997 onwards) practicing the One Country Two Systems policy with the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong has witnessed at all times how relations are formed, dissolved and refashioned amidst changing powers, identities and narratives, given that the decisions that had moved the city in the past were not made upon the consensus of the local population. In its post-handover, post-hangover years, the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill Protests among other events have revealed the multiple appearances and connotations of Hong Kong's local. At the intersections between real-life events, cultural production and consumption, the book is an interdisciplinary study that extracts and examineslocal relations through the lens of the things and places that stand or that have once stood for Hong Kong's local. With cultural icons as an agency, the book offers lessons to learn from the city by opening up manifold postcolonial perspectives to confront and interrogate the volatile experiences in the new millennia - unprecedented since the Cold War era - shared by Hong Kong and other regions. After all, what does it mean, or take, to live in the contemporary world when the local, global and national are constantly given new meanings?
Book Synopsis The Hangover After the Handover by : Helena Y. W. Wu
Download or read book The Hangover After the Handover written by Helena Y. W. Wu and published by Postcolonialism Across the Dis. This book was released on 2020 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a former British colony (1842-1997) and then a Special Administrative Region (from 1997 onwards) practicing the One Country Two Systems policy with the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong has witnessed at all times how relations are formed, dissolved and refashioned amidst changing powers, identities and narratives, given that the decisions that had moved the city in the past were not made upon the consensus of the local population. In its post-handover, post-hangover years, the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill Protests among other events have revealed the multiple appearances and connotations of Hong Kong's local. At the intersections between real-life events, cultural production and consumption, the book is an interdisciplinary study that extracts and examineslocal relations through the lens of the things and places that stand or that have once stood for Hong Kong's local. With cultural icons as an agency, the book offers lessons to learn from the city by opening up manifold postcolonial perspectives to confront and interrogate the volatile experiences in the new millennia - unprecedented since the Cold War era - shared by Hong Kong and other regions. After all, what does it mean, or take, to live in the contemporary world when the local, global and national are constantly given new meanings?
Law Wing Sang provides an alternative lens for looking into Hong Kong's history by breaking away for the usual colonial and nationalist interpretations. Drawing on both English and Chinese sources, he argues that, from the early colonial era, colonial power has been extensively shared between colonizers and the Chinese who chose to work with them. This exploration of the form of colonial power includes critical discussions of various cultural and institutional aspects, looking into such issues as education, language use, political ideologies and other cultural and political concerns. These considerations permit the author to shed new light from a historical perspective on the complex and hotly debated question of Hong Kong identity. But it is not written just out of an interest in things of the past. Rather, the arguments of this book shed new light on some current issues of major relevance to post-colonial Hong Kong. In making critical use of post-colonial approaches, this book not only makes an original and important contribution to Hong Kong studies, but also makes evident that Hong Kong is an important case for all interested in examining the colonial experience in East Asia. This book is of interest to all with an interest in Hong Kong's history and current issues, but also more widely to those who study the phenomenon of colonialism in the Asian region.
Book Synopsis Collaborative Colonial Power by : Wing Sang Law
Download or read book Collaborative Colonial Power written by Wing Sang Law and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law Wing Sang provides an alternative lens for looking into Hong Kong's history by breaking away for the usual colonial and nationalist interpretations. Drawing on both English and Chinese sources, he argues that, from the early colonial era, colonial power has been extensively shared between colonizers and the Chinese who chose to work with them. This exploration of the form of colonial power includes critical discussions of various cultural and institutional aspects, looking into such issues as education, language use, political ideologies and other cultural and political concerns. These considerations permit the author to shed new light from a historical perspective on the complex and hotly debated question of Hong Kong identity. But it is not written just out of an interest in things of the past. Rather, the arguments of this book shed new light on some current issues of major relevance to post-colonial Hong Kong. In making critical use of post-colonial approaches, this book not only makes an original and important contribution to Hong Kong studies, but also makes evident that Hong Kong is an important case for all interested in examining the colonial experience in East Asia. This book is of interest to all with an interest in Hong Kong's history and current issues, but also more widely to those who study the phenomenon of colonialism in the Asian region.
This book analyzes the 'intellectual political culture' of post-Tiananmen China in comparison to and in conflict with liberalism inside and outside the P.R.C. How do mainland politics and discourses challenge ‘our’ own, chiefly liberal and anti-‘statist’ political frameworks? To what extent is China paradoxically intertwined with a liberal economism? How can one understand its general refusal of liberalism, as well as its frequent, direct responses to electoral democracy, universalism, Western media, and other normative forces? Vukovich argues that the Party-state poses a challenge to our understandings of politics, globalization, and even progress. To be illiberal is not necessarily to be reactionary and vulgar but, more interestingly, to be anti-liberal and to seek alternatives to a degraded liberalism. In this way Chinese politics illuminate the global conjuncture, and may have lessons in otherwise bleak times.
Book Synopsis Illiberal China by : Daniel F. Vukovich
Download or read book Illiberal China written by Daniel F. Vukovich and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-13 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the 'intellectual political culture' of post-Tiananmen China in comparison to and in conflict with liberalism inside and outside the P.R.C. How do mainland politics and discourses challenge ‘our’ own, chiefly liberal and anti-‘statist’ political frameworks? To what extent is China paradoxically intertwined with a liberal economism? How can one understand its general refusal of liberalism, as well as its frequent, direct responses to electoral democracy, universalism, Western media, and other normative forces? Vukovich argues that the Party-state poses a challenge to our understandings of politics, globalization, and even progress. To be illiberal is not necessarily to be reactionary and vulgar but, more interestingly, to be anti-liberal and to seek alternatives to a degraded liberalism. In this way Chinese politics illuminate the global conjuncture, and may have lessons in otherwise bleak times.
The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.
Book Synopsis The UK's Changing Democracy by : Patrick Dunleavy
Download or read book The UK's Changing Democracy written by Patrick Dunleavy and published by LSE Press. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.
