In its 2012 Audit of democracy in the UK, Democratic Audit, an independent research organization based at the University of Liverpool, warned that with the rising power of corporations in Britain, “some of the most basic principles of democratic decision-making” are undermined.
The study also said that British politicians are becoming less representative of their constituencies which would lead to a situation in which disillusioned citizens stop voting or even discussing current affairs.
“The reality is that representative democracy, at the core, has to be about people voting, has to be about people engaging in political parties, has to be about people having contact with elected representatives, and having faith and trust in elected representatives, as well as those representatives demonstrating they can exercise political power effectively and make decisions that tend to be approved of”, said Stuart Wilks-Heeg, the report’s lead author, in an interview with The Guardian.
“All of that is pretty catastrophically in decline. How low would turnout have to be before we question whether it’s really representative democracy at all?”, he added.
ISH/MA/HE
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