Local Govt Forum

Reimagining NSW: how good governance strengthens democracy August 2, 2016 6.09am AEST   Carolien van Ham ,  UNSW ,  Anika Gauja ,  University of Sydney ,  Noah Bassil ,  Macquarie University ,  Philippa Collin ,  Western Sydney University This is part of our Reimagining New South Wales (NSW) series. For this series, vice-chancellors across NSW asked a select group of early and mid-career researchers to envisage new ways to tackle old problems and identify emerging opportunities across the state. Many people are watching the Donald Trump campaign in the US and wondering: how has it come to this? Anti-politics, populist, and some say even authoritarian candidates such as  Trump  have risen in recent years across established democracies, along with rising polarisation and increasing political instability. In Australia, federal instability symbolised by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd and Abbott-Turnbull machination...

May 31, 2016 8.55pm AEST   Andy Williams ,  Cardiff University Without community journalists, many constituents would be uninformed about local issues.  Centre for Community Journalism, Cardiff University ,  Author provided Millions of people voted in the UK’s local and national elections in May, but who can say how well informed they were about local issues? Some  45% of London voters  turned out for the mayoral elections, 55.6% voted in the Scottish Parliament election and 45% at the Welsh Assembly elections, but it is near impossible to ascertain what they knew about their nominee’s policies. The UK’s local  news landscape has been decimated  due to mergers, cuts and closures. This has amounted to a steady and widespread withdrawal of professional journalism from our cities, towns and villages – and a resulting drop in information. But all is not lost just yet: at the same time a new generation of “hyperlocal” o...

October 22, 2019 10.39pm AEDT   Bernd Reiter ,  University of South Florida Around the globe, citizens of many democracies are worried that their  governments are not doing what the people want . When voters pick representatives to engage in democracy, they hope they are picking people who will understand and respond to constituents’ needs. U.S. representatives have, on average,  more than 700,000 constituents  each, making this task more and more elusive, even with the best of intentions.  Less than 40%  of Americans are satisfied with their federal government. Across   Europe , South America, the Middle East and China, social movements have demanded better government – but gotten few real and lasting results, even in  those places  where  governments were   forced out . In my work as a  comparative political scientist  working on democracy, citizenship and race, I’ve been researc...