Why Politics Fails

From the 2023 Reith lecturer

Politics is failing us. This is why.

Brilliant . . . a must-readDaron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail

When it comes to politics, there are five goals that voters generally agree upon. We all want a say in how were governed, to be treated equally, a safety net when times are hard, protection from harm and to be richer in the future. So, why does politics not deliver that?

The problem is each of these five goals results in a political trap. For example, we all want a say in how were governed, but its impossible to have any true will of the people. And we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.

In Why Politics Fails, award-winning Oxford professor Ben Ansell draws on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit to vividly illustrate how we can escape these traps, overcome self-interest and deliver on our collective goals. Politics seems to be broken, but this book shows how it can work for everyone.

A meticulous study of how different societies find it so difficult to achieve widely shared goalsFinancial Times

Incisive and grippingDaniel Ziblatt, co-author of How Democracies Die

Salutary reading for the world we live in nowJames A. Robinson, co-author of Why Nations Fails