Introducing compulsory voting in the United States and other majoritarian democracies, with meaningful and enforceable penalties for abstention, has the potential to reduce political polarization and ...

Labour secured a massive Commons majority at last year’s general election with the support of just one in five eligible voters. The party won nearly two-thirds of MPs (63%) with just a third of the ...

More Americans voted in the 2020 presidential election than in any other contest in our history (Hartig et al 2023). Yet in the same election—the lauded peak of our democratic participation—nearly the ...

Welcome to openDemocracy’s weekly reader comments round-up. This is an opportunity for us to showcase some of the many carefully considered messages we receive on a range of topics. These comments are ...

Even in such a bitter, unusual election, roughly half of eligible Americans probably won't vote by the end of Election Day. In recent elections, turnout has ranged from about 50% to 60% of the ...

In the past, Paul Strangio receives funding from the Australian Research Council. For nearly 200 years, the notion of American political exceptionalism has had currency in the United States: it is an ...

Earlier this month, an Arizona state legislator did the unthinkable: He proposed returning power to the people by repealing compulsory school attendance laws. Compulsory education requirements have ...