Endorsements

The centre-left is experimenting with democracy - this book examines what it hopes to gain from what Tony Blair called 'strengthening the democratic impulse'. This book offers a clear, in-depth and comparative analysis of a range of cases of 'innovative' forms of consultation and engagement. This is one of very few books to critically examine both the policy and political uses of the shift towards citizen-centred policy making. The book also offers a fresh analysis on the Big Society agenda and its potential for adoption outside of the UK. This book will be of interest to politicians, policy makers and interest groups seeking to understand the dynamics and contradictions in the search for democratic renewal. Students, academics and policy makers with an interest in democratic renewal, consultation, centre-left and centre-right politics will find this a valuable resource. The book adopts the 'democratic audit' approach developed by Professor David Beetham and colleagues. Using the ideas of political equality, popular control and deliberation the book examines a range of cases of 'innovative consultation. It links these cases with a mapping of recent changes in political behavior and the political responses by both left and right to what some call a 'crisis of democracy'. Students, academics, policy makers with an interest in consultation, democratic renewal, labour politics and the Big Society agenda are the key target audience for the book. -