Plus, should knowledge and competence be rewarded in our democratic system? Should some votes count more than others and ...

David talks us through the history of the arguments about suffrage (some of which have echoes now in the debate around children), his work talking to children in schools about politics and voting, and ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Late in this book of biographical essays, David Runciman discusses how Barack Obama took consolation from the ...

Barely three months away from the election it is impossible to say who is likely to win: it could be either of the main parties, or it could be neither. Plenty of past elections have been too close to ...

One of the better arguments for Britain’s leaving the EU was that it might reinvigorate and liberate national politics, stifled for too long by the absence of real choice at election time. The EU is a ...

When the Australian cricketers Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were exposed tampering with the ball during last year’s test series in South Africa there was, along with all the faux ...

For the second episode in this season of History of Ideas, David discusses the Scottish philosopher David Hume and explores how eighteenth-century arguments about the national debt can help make sense ...

Follow this author to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. WHY FOLLOW? Update your preferences in Account Settings Runciman heads the politics department at the University of Cambridge and is ...