Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics

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One of the most striking points the political philosopher David Runciman made in his seminal book How Democracy Ends was that democracies don’t fail backwards: they fail forward. The first is the massive concentration of corporate power and private wealth that’s been under way since the 1970s, together with a corresponding increase in inequality, social exclusion and polarisation in most western societies; the second is the astonishing penetration of “dark money” into democratic politics; and the third is the revolutionary transformation of the information ecosystem in which democratic politics is conducted – a transformation that has rendered the laws that supposedly regulated elections entirely irrelevant to modern conditions. That’s why those who see in the current difficulties of liberal democracies the stirrings of past monsters – Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, to name just three – are always looking in the wrong place. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from.

This title tells the story of how undisclosed donations – ‘dark money’ – have infiltrated British politics, undermining public faith in democracy and fuelling the rise of populism across the West. Democracy for Sale is a diligent, brilliant guide through a shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). If you're concerned about the health of British democracy, read this book - it is thorough, gripping and vitally important' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland. Remarkable’ Observer, Book of the Week Democracy is in crisis, and unaccountable and untraceable flows of money are helping to destroy it.

Democracy for Sale is the story of how money, vested interests and digital skulduggery are eroding trust in democracy - and a powerful account of what must be done about it. And if that’s true, the key question for us at this moment in history is: how might our current system fail? It’s a great case study in how ruling elites can be infected with policy ideas and programmes via those “second-hand traders in ideas” of whom Hayek spoke so eloquently: academics, thinktanks and media commentators. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. Photograph: Frank Augstein/Pool/Reuters View image in fullscreen ‘These threats to democracy have, for decades, been visible to anyone disposed to look for them’: Boris Johnson in 2019.

And it has been able to do this in what has turned out to be a regulatory vacuum – with laws, penalties and overseeing authorities that are no longer fit for purpose. Remainers will probably read Geoghegan’s account of this manoeuvring by Brexiters as further evidence that the Brexit vote was invalid. Antiquated electoral laws are broken with impunity, secretive lobbying is bending our politics out of shape and Silicon Valley tech giants collude in selling out democracy. He starts with the Brexit referendum and the various kinds of unsavoury practices that took place during that doomed plebiscite – from the various illegalities of Vote Leave, through Arron Banks’s lavish expenditure to the astonishing tale of the dark money funnelled through the Ulster DUP and a loophole in Northern Ireland’s electoral law. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed.ACT Contact / FAQ About Events / Videos Merch / Subs Sign in/up Democracy For Sale : Dark Money and Dirty Politics Geoghegan, Peter More by this author. Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here.

Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and populists in many other countries are the beneficiaries.These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. He shows how antiquated electoral laws are broken with impunity, how secretive lobbying bends our politics out of shape, and how Silicon Valley tech giants have colluded in selling out democracy. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report.