Four ways cities can help protect democratic values |
When people think about democracy, they tend to think about national elections, parliaments or the policies of national governments. Even the recent byelection in Holborn and St Pancras showed that democratic events are often framed around what they mean for the fortunes of the national leaders, rather than what they mean for daily life within a community.
But this focus on the national level and on the procedures associated with democracy is shortsighted. Our work, bringing together political theory and local politics, is aimed at developing a deeper understanding of democracy. This is particularly important when democracies around the world are coming under threat from authoritarian leaders and insurgent populist movements.
We argue that politics at the local level, especially in cities, has a critical role to play in resisting authoritarianism. But what can cities do to promote democracy?
1. Standing up to authoritarianism
Cities have long had a strong connection to democratic values. The practices of self-governance in the city-states of ancient Greece or Renaissance Italy bore this out.
Today, cities often provide a progressive counterweight to........