Defining Democracy ─ Voting Procedures in Decision-Making, Elections and Governance

Defining Democracy looks both at the theory of why and the history of how different voting procedures have come to be used – or not, as the case may be – in the three fields of democratic structures: firstly, in decision-making, both in society at large and in the elected chamber; secondly, in elections to and within those chambers; and thirdly, in the various forms of governance, from no-party to multi-party and all-party, which have emerged as a result.

Peter Emerson is the director of the de Borda Institute, an NGO which promotes the use of inclusive voting procedures, especially in conflict zones. The child of a Southern Irish Protestant father and a Northern English Catholic mother, he has been based in Belfast for the last thirty five years. As part of this work, he has travelled extensively, observing several elections for the osce, and his latest deployment was as a translator for the eu Monitoring Mission for South Ossetia. In between such duties, he has lectured in countless universities and other institutes, throughout Europe, in East and Southern Africa, and across the United States. Since 1990 has published extensively on consesus politics in newspapers and books.