The Everyday Democracy Index
Measuring empowerment in everyday life across Europe
What are the most democratic countries in Europe? How would we find out? We could look at electoral turnouts. But while elections matter, Demos doesn’t believe that democracy is something that should start and finish at the ballot box.
That’s why we’re developing the Everyday Democracy Index (EDI). EDI is a tool for assessing the democratic health of European countries across many different dimensions. That includes the formal dimensions of democracy, like procedural rights and election turnout. But it also includes more everyday features of democracy – how important democratic principles and practices are to the cultures of workplaces, to people’s community life, to the way they interact with public services, and even to the way they talk to their friends and family.
That’s why we’re developing the Everyday Democracy Index (EDI). EDI is a tool for assessing the democratic health of European countries across many different dimensions. That includes the formal dimensions of democracy, like procedural rights and election turnout. But it also includes more everyday features of democracy – how important democratic principles and practices are to the cultures of workplaces, to people’s community life, to the way they interact with public services, and even to the way they talk to their friends and family.
- From Empowerment to Equality: A Political Education On Saturday, Demos hosted a session at this year’s Compass Conference, ‘Born Free and Equal’. At the conference, seminars explored the variety of inequalities existent in British society, in which contexts they play themselves out, and what exacerbates them. But one question, as ever, remained neglected. What sustains inequality? continue reading 18th June 2008
- Can the EDI go Latin? At the end of March we had an unique opportunity to explore the comparative potential for the Everyday Democracy Index (EDI). In conjunction with the Avina Foundation we held a workshop on the The Everyday Democracy Index: Implications and Applications which brought together Latin America academics, index experts and NGOs. During the day and a half workshop we were able to look again at the Everyday Democracy Index for Europe and to explore what implications different cultures of... continue reading on 22nd April 2008
- EDI in Brussels We just got back from the launch of the Everyday Democracy Index (EDI) at The Centre in Brussels. It was a chance to test our ideas with a group drawn from Member States, NGOs, index experts and journalists. Margot Wallstrom, the Vice President of the European Commission, in charge of institutional relations and communication, was there to respond. continue reading on 9th April 2008
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Launch of the Everyday Democracy Index
Yesterday evening Demos was jam-packed for the launch of the Everyday Democracy Index. Paul Skidmore unveiled the first exciting set of results, with an engaging response from Professor Timothy Garton Ash.
Rather than relying solely on traditional democratic indicators like electoral turnout, the EDI also measures how good countries are at empowering their citizens in everyday spheres of life like neighbourhoods and communities, workplaces, public services and even the family.
continue reading on 1st February 2008 - Podcast: The Everyday Democracy Index Yesterday saw the launch of the new Demos pamphlet The Everyday Democracy Index. It sets out the first set of results of an endeavour to measure how good countries are at empowering their citizens in everyday spheres of life - spheres such as neighbourhoods and communities, workplaces, public services and even the family. continue reading on 1st February 2008
- everyday democracy video happy new year. On January 31st 2008 we will launch the Everyday Democracy Index for Europe. In the meantime, to whet your appetite, here's a 4 minute refresher on everyday democracy. it's not easy crunching a policy pamphlet into four watchable minutes, so some of the subtlety may have been lost here, for which I apologise, but hopefully you get the gist. continue reading 1st January 2008