Witness sessions
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Thursday 9 December, London
Timetable | Discussions and statements | Witnesses
Congress House, 23-28 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3LS
This opening session focused on academic approaches to the issue of participation; exploring on a broad level the possible reasons for the recent shifts in political activity including the severe decline in voter turnout and party membership.
The Commission heard from Professor Vivien Lowndes, Professor Pippa Norris, Professor Philippe Schmitter, Professor Stuart Weir and Professor Paul Whiteley.
Timetable
| 10.30am | Roundtable discussion: Professor Vivien Lowndes (De Montfort University) Professor Philippe Schmitter (European University Institute) Professor Stuart Weir (Essex University) |
| 12.00-12.30pm | Audience questions |
| 1.30pm | Q & A with Professor Pippa Norris (Harvard University) – video link |
| 2.00pm | Q & A with Professor Paul Whiteley (Essex University) |
| 2.30-3pm | Audience questions |
Discussions and statements
Listen to the discussion & read transcripts and summaries:
Professor Vivien Lowndes,
Professor Philippe Schmitter and Professor Stuart Weir
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summary
Professor Pippa Norris
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Professor Paul Whiteley
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Witnesses
Professor of Local Government Studies in the Local Governance Research Unit, De Montfort University, Leicester
Vivien previously worked at the Institute of Local Government Studies (University of Birmingham) and in the Government Department at the University of Essex. She has also worked in local government and the voluntary sector.
Her research and publications focus on citizen participation, social capital, local democracy and institutional design. She has recently completed research on local political leadership (Joseph Rowntree Foundation) and on local variations in political participation (Economic and Social Research Council). Vivien is a member of the meta-evaluation team studying the impact of the local government ‘modernisation’ programme (Office for the Deputy Prime Minister). She is also a member of the Council of Europe High Level Group on the Future of Democracy in Europe, and has served as a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Public Administration Committee.
Other current projects include work for the Audit Commission and the Improvement and Development Agency, and membership of the IPPR Working Party on Active Citizenship.
The McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Pippa’s research specialisms include comparative electoral activity, political communications, and gender politics.
Pippa has served as an expert consultant for many international bodies including the UN, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, International IDEA, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the UK Electoral Commission. Her work has been published in French, German, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Pashtu, Arabic, Korean, and Japanese. Recent publications include Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism (CUP 2002), Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behaviour (CUP 2002) and the forthcoming Radical Right: Parties and Electoral Competition (CUP 2005).
She has held visiting positions at Columbia University, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of East Anglia, the University of Oslo, the University of Cape Town, Otago University, and the Australian National University. Prior to her Harvard appointment, she taught at Edinburgh University.
Philippe Schmitter was Professor of Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence, Department of Political and Social Sciences until September 2004
Philippe has published books and articles on comparative politics, on regional integration in Western Europe and Latin America, on the transition from authoritarian rule in Southern Europe and Latin America, and on the intermediation of class, sectoral and professional interests. His current work is on the political characteristics of the emerging Euro-polity, on the consolidation of democracy in Southern and Eastern countries, and on the possibility of post-liberal democracy in Western Europe and North America. He was a member of the Council of Europe High Level Group on the Future of Democracyin Europe, andtogether with Alexander Trechsel co-ordinated the Green Paper produced by the group – The Future of Democracy in Europe, published in June 2004.
Philippe has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Paris, Geneva, Mannheim and Zürich, and Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation and the Palo Alto Centre for Advanced Studies in the Behavioural Sciences.
Director of Democratic Audit at the Human Rights Centre, Essex University and a Visiting Professor with the Government Department, Essex University
Democratic Audit is a unit conducting research into the quality of democracy and human rights in the UK and internationally. Stuart is a joint author of Democracy under Blair: the latest democratic audit of the UK (Politicos, 2002); The IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment and The State of Democracy: Democracy Assessments in Eight Nations around the World (both Kluwer Law International, 2002 & 2003).
Stuart is also a founder of Charter88 – the UK campaign for democratic change, a former editor of the New Statesman and New Socialist, and a former deputy editor of New Society. He has worked for both Child Poverty Action Group (as director of the Citizens Rights Office) and Shelter (as editor of its magazine and Head of Publicity). He writes and broadcasts widely on democratic issues; has worked in television on drama-documentaries and the Channel Four People Parliament series; and acts as a consultant to select committees in the UK Parliament and internationally for the European Union, United Nations Development Programme, and the Department for International Development.
Professor of Politics at Essex University
Paul was Director of the Economic and Social Research Council Programme on Democracy and Participation, 1998-2003; and Co-Director of the ESRC-funded British Election Study. His current research interests include British political parties, electoral behaviour, political economy and the comparative analysis of citizenship and social capital.
Paul is author or co-author of ten books and some fifty articles on political economy, electoral behaviour, political parties, British politics and quantitative methods in political science.
