Runciman heads the politics department at the University of Cambridge and is the author, most recently, of [tempo-ecommerce src="https://www.amazon.com/How-Democracy ...

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 ...

Cameron says of his time in government: ‘We proved in an increasingly polarised age that politics wasn’t either/or – you could be pro-defence and pro-aid; pro-family and pro-equality; pro-public ...

“’This is not a time to err on the side of caution,’ Blair said, ‘not a time to weigh the risks to an infinite balance; not a time for the cynicism of the worldly wise who favour playing it long.’ And ...

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 ...

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 ...

People are living longer than they used to. They are also having fewer children. The evidence of what this combination can do to a society is growing around the world, but some of the most striking ...

This election promised to produce constitutional confusion and uncertainty and instead it has delivered stark clarity. The British electoral system values clarity: few people dissent from the line ...

Wanting to be Margaret Thatcher is tempting some prime ministerial hopefuls to flirt with being Donald Trump. Trying to be Trump is likely to mean that they end up as Theresa May: full of purpose, ...

There is a difference between a politician deciding your fate and its being left to impersonal chance. But it isn’t a dif­ference that matters much when lives are on the line. When something has to be ...

American democracy is an amazing, fascinating, bewildering thing. There has never been anything else like it. Even now, as democracy becomes an ever more familiar feature of our world, there is still ...