̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - democracy

Opinion: Whether democracy can survive AI will depend on us

lw355 — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 16:13:42 +0000

What is the best framework for the global governance of AI? How do we respond to tech companies who argue against regulation? Is our current pace of technological change ultimately greater than our ability to manage it?

Support for populist politics 'collapsed' during the pandemic – global report

fpjl2 — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 10:38:55 +0000

Support for populist parties and leaders – and agreement with populist ideas – has fallen around the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new Cambridge report.

Europe-wide political divide emerging between cities and countryside – study

fpjl2 — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 10:14:39 +0000

A new study reveals the extent of the political divide opening up between city and countryside right across Europe, with research suggesting that political polarisation in the 21st century may have a lot to do with place and location.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers analysed survey data collected between 2002 and 2018 to gauge the social and civic attitudes of people across the cities, towns and rural areas of 30 European countries.

̽��ֱ��findings show that political division throughout the continent runs on a 'gradient' of disenchantment and distrust in democracy that increases as it moves from urban centres through suburbs, towns, villages and out into open country.

People in the more rural parts of Europe have the lowest levels of trust in their nation’s current political system – and yet are significantly more likely than their urban counterparts to actually vote in elections.

Those in suburbs, followed by towns and then the countryside, are increasingly more likely to see themselves as politically conservative, and hold anti-immigration and anti-EU views, while city dwellers lean towards the left.

However, it’s not the poorest rural areas where disillusion is strongest, and small town and countryside dwellers report much higher levels of life satisfaction while voicing dissatisfaction with democratic institutions.

Researchers from Cambridge’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy and Department of Land Economy say the study suggests a 'deepening geographical fracture' in European societies that could see a return to the stark urban-rural political divides of the early 20th century.

“Those living outside of Europe’s major urban centres have much less faith in politics,” said study co-author Professor Michael Kenny from the Bennett Institute.

“ ̽��ֱ��growth of disenchantment in more rural areas has provided fertile soil for nationalist and populist parties and causes – a trend that looks set to continue.”

“Mainstream politicians seeking to re-engage residents of small towns and villages must provide economic opportunities, but they also need to address feelings of disconnection from mainstream politics and the changes associated with a more globalised economy,” he said.

Across Western Europe, residents of rural areas are on average 33.5% more likely to vote than those in inner cities, but 16% less likely to report a one-unit increase in their trust of political parties on a scale of 0-10. They are also far less likely to engage in political actions such as protests and boycotts.

Conservatism incrementally increases as locations shift from suburb to town to the countryside. Europeans in rural places are an average of 57% more likely to feel one point closer to the right on the political spectrum (on a ten-point scale where five is the centre ground) than a city dweller.

When asked if migration and the EU 'enrich the national culture', rural Europeans are 55% more likely than those in cities to disagree by one unit on a ten-unit scale.

However, on issues of the welfare state and trust in police – both iconic in post-war rhetorical battles between left and right – no urban-rural divisions were detected. “Worries about law and welfare may no longer be key to Europe’s political geography in our new populist age,” said Kenny.

Last year, research from the Bennett Institute revealed a global decline in satisfaction with democracy, and the latest study suggests that – in Europe, at least – this is most acute in rural locations.

After discounting characteristics typically thought to influence political attitudes, from education to age, the researchers still found that people in rural housing were 10% more likely than urbanites to report a one unit drop in democratic satisfaction (on a scale of 0-10).

“We find that there is a geography to current patterns of political disillusion,” said Dr Davide Luca of the Land Economy Department, co-author of the study now published in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society.

“As disenchantment rises in European hinterlands, democratic politics risks being eroded from within by people who engage with elections yet distrust the system and are drawn to populist, anti-system parties.”

Of the 30 nations they looked at – the EU27 plus Norway, Switzerland and the UK – France had the sharpest urban-rural divide in political attitudes. “Large cities such as Paris and Lyon are seen to be highly globalised and full of bohemians nicknamed the ‘bobos’, while small towns and rural areas are primarily inhabited by long-term immigrants and the indigenous working classes,” Luca said.

While less pronounced across the Channel, the trend is still very much in evidence in the UK. “Cambridge is a prime example,” explains Luca. “ ̽��ֱ��centre hosts the world’s leading labs and companies, yet greater Cambridge is one of the UK’s least equal cities – and the fenland market towns are even more disconnected from the city’s hyper-globalised core.”

Added Luca: “Ageing populations in small towns and villages combined with years of austerity have put pressure on public services in rural areas – services that are often central to the social connections needed for a community to thrive.

“Reviving these services may be key to reducing the political divides emerging between urban and rural populations across Europe.”

“Geography of disillusion” poses a major challenge for democratic countries across the continent, according to researchers.

As disenchantment rises in European hinterlands, democratic politics risks being eroded from within

Davide Luca

Miguel Alcântara

̽��ֱ��back streets of Montpellier, France

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Faith in democracy: millennials are the most disillusioned generation ‘in living memory’

fpjl2 — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 07:41:00 +0000

Young people’s faith in democratic politics is lower than any other age group, and millennials across the world are more disillusioned with democracy than Generation X or baby boomers were at the same stage of life.

Global dissatisfaction with democracy at a record high

fpjl2 — Wed, 29 Jan 2020 08:41:52 +0000

A new report, the first from the ̽��ֱ��'s new Centre for the Future of Democracy, finds that 2019 had the "the highest level of democratic discontent" since 1995.

Opinion: Remainer or re-leaver? ̽��ֱ��philosophical conundrum posed by Brexit

fpjl2 — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 11:07:43 +0000

If you only glanced at a recent YouGov survey, you might think that a large majority of the UK is in agreement about Brexit. ̽��ֱ��electorate may have divided pretty evenly in the referendum, but now the 45% of “hard leavers” are joined by 23% who “voted to remain but still think the government has a duty to bring the UK out of the EU”.

One reading of this poll is that the country is now uniting behind Brexit. As YouGov headlined its report: “Forget 52%. ̽��ֱ��rise of the ‘re-leavers’ mean the pro-Brexit electorate is 68%.”

But to conclude that the country is uniting would be shallow, and for prime minister Theresa May, at least, dangerous.

Most people now accept Brexit, but that doesn’t mean they believe in it. Re-leavers are addressing a genuine philosophical problem: should you change your beliefs when you find yourself in the minority?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once wrote:

When a law is proposed in the people’s assembly, what is asked of them is not precisely whether they approve or reject, but whether or not it conforms to the general will that is theirs. Each man [sic], in giving his vote, states his opinion on this matter, and the declaration of the general will is drawn from the counting of votes. When, therefore, the opinion contrary to mine prevails, this proves merely that I was in error, and that what I took to be the general will was not so.

Put to one side the fact that Rousseau thought citizens should reflect in solitude on what was best for the country and that they should not discuss their views before voting.

Rousseau’s point was that the result, when it came, revealed the true will of the people. If you find yourself in the minority, it means you were wrong. Brexit, one might conclude, was the correct choice. ̽��ֱ��48% were simply in error.

A different view is associated with the liberal tradition. Being in the minority says nothing about “right” and “wrong”. It announces simply that you lost. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is an important distinction. If being in the minority means you were wrong, then presumably you wouldn’t be crazy to change your mind. After all, if we assume that everybody is equal in their ability to judge these questions, then the majority is more likely to be right.

But if being in the minority simply means that you lost, then perhaps it’s important that you don’t change your mind, that you don’t stop arguing the issue, and that you don’t stop using all the constitutional means at your disposal to press your case. It is vital to keep alive the arguments that lost the day because in a democracy you always get to fight another one.

Keeping alive those arguments is often difficult. There is always pressure on those who lost to admit they were wrong, to pretend they’ve changed their minds, or at least to shut up. ̽��ֱ��famous phrase “tyranny of the majority” was never just about protecting minority rights; it was about recognising the force of majority opinion.

To suggest that the UK is uniting around Brexit, then, is a danger to democracy itself. That danger comes from pressure on the losers to actually change their minds. Worryingly, this now seems to be May’s position. As she said in a campaign speech near Middlesborough:

You can only deliver Brexit if you believe in Brexit.

I'm not a ‘re-leaver’”, she seemed to be saying. “I’m now a true believer, and you should be too.”

̽��ֱ��other danger is to May. If she thinks the country is really uniting around Brexit, then she could do worse than talk to the street musician interviewed by the Financial Times a few weeks ago: “I don’t think the referendum will be overturned. People seem to think of it as "the people’s vote” and to overturn it would in some way be seen to be undemocratic. People who voted Remain are powerless at the moment.“

He’s right. Those who voted to stay in the EU lost and are, at the moment, powerless. However, politics can change pretty quickly. Support for going ahead with Brexit is broad but shallow. If the economy starts getting worse, the true believers may march on undaunted, eyes fixed firmly on the horizon, but the re-leavers may find their doubts coming back to the surface.

̽��ֱ��more salient number in the survey might turn out to be the true believers, who say they will stick with Brexit whatever the consequences: and that’s only 45%.

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation.

A recent YouGov survey suggests there is increasing agreement that 'Brexit means Brexit'. However, Alfred Moore from the Conspiracy and Democracy Project suspects support is "broad but shallow", and forcing people to change their minds about Brexit poses a danger to democracy.

It is vital to keep alive the arguments that lost the day because in a democracy you always get to fight another one.

Alfred Moore

Anastos Kol

Farewell picture

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One Hundred Days of Trump

ag236 — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:30:44 +0000

̽��ֱ��concept of the Hundred Days was first used to describe the period between Napoleon’s return from exile and his final defeat at Waterloo, in 1815. As a marker of the president’s first months in office, a “honeymoon” period when conditions for him to enact much of his agenda are supposed to be most advantageous, it has come to take on a rather different meaning in modern American politics.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in the Oval Office from 1933 to 1945, was the first president to have a period known as “ ̽��ֱ��Hundred Days.” He used it to usher in a series of legislative reforms that began the implementation of the New Deal, a domestic reform program which totally refashioned America in FDR’s image and made his party, the Democrats, the dominant political force in the country for decades to follow.

In American politics, the Hundred Days are meant to be a period of Rooseveltian success, not Napoleonic failure. It is supposed to mark a period of dramatic change so that America comes to reflect the values and goals of its new president. It is not supposed to end in the president’s own Waterloo. Every president wants to be a Roosevelt, not a Napoleon.

Roosevelt’s Hundred Days have become the stuff of legend, and books on the period—including a smart, superbly written account by a noted Cambridge expert of American history, Professor Tony Badger—incorporate the phrase in their title. This is because the Hundred Days had more of a Napoleonic spirit than FDR himself would have liked to admit, conveying a gut-level instinct for action, ambition, and above all grandeur. ̽��ֱ��Hundred Days are supposed to be consequential, a period in which people realize they are living through an important part of history. They are supposed to be a reach for glory.

With the advent of the New Deal, FDR made good on this promise of a dynamic Hundred Days. Roosevelt worked with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress to pass legislation on a wide number of problems caused by the Great Depression, from the banking crisis to widespread poverty and unemployment to the collapse of agriculture and industry. Within three months, many of the staples of the New Deal were set up. Not all would last, but Roosevelt and congressional Democrats showed that they had a plan and were doing what they could to enact it, quickly.

Few historians accept that the New Deal cured the Depression—the largest government stimulus program in world history, also known as the Second World War, did that instead. Nor did FDR have a coherent ideological vision: he was too experimental and pragmatic for that.

But by showing that he cared, and that he was willing to do whatever it took to help the American people in their time of suffering, he transformed himself into the most popular president in American history. After Roosevelt’s first victory in 1932, Democrats won six of the next eight presidential elections and controlled both houses of Congress for all but four of the next forty-eight years.

̽��ֱ��Hundred Days started something pretty special. It’s no surprise, then, that presidents from both parties who followed in Roosevelt’s wake have sought their own dynamic start. Most haven’t been successful, and many have seen their presidencies nearly ruined from disasters right at the outset.

John F. Kennedy oversaw the humiliating debacle at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, his 94th day in office, while Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly killed on March 30, 1981, his 69th day. Neither tragedy did much damage to presidents regarded, at the time and ever since, as popular and successful. On the other hand, the president who self-consciously strived hardest to emulate FDR’s rapid achievements, Lyndon B. Johnson, saw the early hopes of his presidency destroyed by the war in Vietnam and the deterioration of race relations at home.

In other words, the Hundred Days marker is a poor gauge of presidential success. Roosevelt set an example of a quick-start, dynamically successful presidency, yet it remains pretty much the only example. President Donald Trump, who, despite Republican majorities in Congress, has accomplished virtually nothing of his agenda so far, may have had a good point when he recently tweeted to complain about being held to “the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days.”

̽��ֱ��problem is, it was Trump himself who set that standard. All through the presidential campaign last year, and then during the transitional period between the election in November and the inauguration in January, Trump not only promised quick action but quick results. ̽��ֱ��wall along the border with Mexico, supposedly adverse trade deals, ISIS—all were going to be solved “immediately” or “on day one.” At a campaign rally in Florida, in October, he said he would begin to repeal and replace Obamacare on his “first day in office. … It’s going to be so easy.”

It hasn’t been so easy, of course, certainly not for President Trump. Only time will tell whether that means his presidency will ultimately end with him as a Roosevelt or a Napoleon. But he’s not off to a good start.

Andrew Preston, Professor of American History, is the author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (Knopf, 2012)

Professor Andrew Preston examines the origins of the first hundred days as a measure of presidential success in American politics.

In American politics, the Hundred Days are meant to be a period of Rooseveltian success, not Napoleonic failure.

Andrew Preston

Andrew Preston on Trump's 100 days

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#ICYMI - Trump’s First Hundred Days

ag236 — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 14:41:16 +0000

“I don't think that there is a presidential period of time in the first 100 days where anyone has done nearly what we've been able to do.” So declared President Donald J. Trump in a recent interview, offering a characteristically bold interpretation of American history.

Since his inauguration on 20 January, Trump has certainly been active. On the international scene, he has played nice with Vladimir Putin, fallen out with Vladimir Putin, bombed Syria, and sent the US Navy to rattle North Korea. He’s wined and dined the Chinese president, overcome his germaphobia long enough to hold hands with British Prime Minister Theresa May (while refusing to shake German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s), and variously attacked and embraced NATO.

At home, he has struck a defiant tone – against the media, Meryl Streep, assorted nay-sayers, and his own intelligence agencies. He has played musical chairs with his advisors in the West Wing, and accused his predecessor of wiretapping him. Amid the sturm und drang he has managed to get a Supreme Court nominee approved, but his much-vaunted healthcare proposal was dramatically shelved when support failed to materialize, and his travel bans targeting Muslims have been suspended by the courts.

Perhaps his rollback of Obama-era environmental protections amounts to the biggest formal change thus far, but as a new executive order undoing older ones, it required only the stroke of a pen. He signed another order withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but NAFTA still stands. And there are not, as yet, any bricks in the border wall. In sum, in substantive terms, Trump’s administration has not done nearly as much as he claims, or promised.

̽��ֱ��idea of the “First 100 days” as a benchmark of presidential success dates back to the early months of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency in 1933. And Roosevelt, as with much in presidential history, set the bar high. Amid the grave crisis of the Great Depression, and with a landslide electoral victory just behind him, Roosevelt promised “direct, vigorous action” to meet the economic emergency – and delivered.

With a potent combination of charisma aided by circumstance, he persuaded Congress (sitting in a special session lasting 100 days) to pass fifteen major pieces of legislation – restructuring major industries, regulating banking and finance, providing subsidies to farmers, and offering some relief to the unemployed and destitute. He explained these actions in “Fireside Chats” – using the new technology of radio to speak directly to citizens in their own homes, connecting president and populace in a new way. His plain speech and folksy manner served to revolutionise presidential rhetoric, and in the most laudatory accounts, transform the mood of the country too. From despair came determination and a new positive outlook, courtesy of Roosevelt’s winning personality and can-do attitude (never mind that the Depression itself didn’t lift for a decade).

No other president can match Roosevelt’s speedy legislative achievements, or the mythical aura that has grown up around his presidency. Most presidents rack up a success or two: Bill Clinton got his budget through in the first 100 days, Barack Obama signed the $800 billion stimulus into law, and George W. Bush’s tax relief plan was on its way to approval. But their most significant legislative accomplishments came later.

Even for Presidents who have gained their own mythic status, the First 100 Days weren’t always easy. John F. Kennedy’s start was marred by the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. Ronald Reagan faced, and survived, an assassination attempt in March 1981. Reagan’s demeanour in adversity, though (he quipped that he hoped all his doctors were Republicans), sent his approval ratings sky high – helping him pass a major economic recovery programme, and laying the foundation for his later tax and budget cuts.

Trump has presented outlines of his budget and proposed tax reforms, but Congress still needs to take action. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan has twice pulled votes on healthcare reform, and Trump is yet to affix his signature to a major law.

And then there’s that FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, lurking in the background but threatening to upend his administration altogether. With all thatin mind, Trump’s claims of extraordinary action and achievement undoubtedly fall short. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Trump has responded to a spate of negative “100 days” assessments by turning on a dime, and now pronouncing this benchmark to be “an artificial barrier” that isn’t “very meaningful.”

Of course, all politicians over-promise and under-deliver, but for a president who defined himself in opposition to typical politicians, this is a dangerous game. His job approval rating in the Gallup poll stands at 41% on average for the first quarter of 2017 – the lowest accorded a new President since polling began, and the first below 50%. And yet, a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests that Trump voters aren’t displaying any “buyer’s remorse.”

For now, his supporters are still willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. In this, the pragmatic side of Trump’s political persona may be working to his advantage – his claims to be a “dealmaker” providing some cover when backing away from his more strident stances. But his deals need to bear fruit, and soon.

In mid-April, the White House Instagram account captioned an image “#ICYMI President Donald J. Trump is continuing to Make America Great Again!” “ICYMI” – text-speak for “In Case You Missed It” – was apt. For all the bombast, any return to “greatness” as Trump sees it, has indeed been easy to miss. ̽��ֱ��mood of the country has not been transformed (Trump’s Twitter musings have not proven to be the new “Fireside Chat”).

̽��ֱ��United States remains a deeply polarized nation, where politics has become an ever-sharper scythe, defining and dividing friendships, families, communities and regions. Yet the sky has not fallen. American political and civic institutions have not collapsed, as some darkly predicted in November. Outrage has fuelled and followed him, the spectre of impeachment hovers over him, but as his first 100 days draws to a close, Trump may yet have a more successful second act. At the very least, it is unlikely to be dull.

Dr. Emily Charnock is a Lecturer in American History and a Fellow of Selwyn College

Dr Emily Charnock, Lecturer in American History, delivers her verdict as the Trump presidency reaches its first major milestone.

̽��ֱ��idea of the 'First 100 days' as a benchmark of presidential success dates back to the early months of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency in 1933. Roosevelt, as with much in presidential history, set the bar high.

Emily Charnock

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