Leafing through some of the papers this week, I was rather struck by the words of one “senior UK source”, quoted in the Independent. In a discussion of plans for the drawing-down of troops in Iraq, this source affirms that the UK “will not be swayed by domestic political considerations”.

Presumably “domestic political considerations” includes the opinion of the British public. According to a YouGov poll conducted earlier this year, 59% of respondents say British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq “more or less immediately.” Yet, according to one senior Downing Street official, “it would be wrong to assume London was anywhere close to a decision on full troop withdrawal” – a stance unequivocally confirmed by Gordon Brown’s recent statements.

Far from being a model of democracy, then, it would seem that the British government is more than willing to simply ignore the will of its own population (not to mention Iraq’s) when it suits it to do so. Nor is this some sort of aberration, as John Lanchester explains in a recent piece for the London Review of Books. In the British political system,

“a leader can, after winning a general election, in effect take the phone to the electorate off the hook for the next four and a half years. This is not an accident, it is the way the system is supposed to work: a fundamental democratic deficit, designed to deliver functioning majorities of power with a minority share of the vote, and a permanently empowered class of politicians and civil servants.”

Not unnaturally, such a yawning divide between rulers and ruled is somewhat unsatisfactory for a great many people, and widespread disillusionment with the political process is the predictable result.

While this declining engagement with the “formal” democratic system is often attributed to widespread apathy amongst the population, the findings of last year’s widely publicised Power report indicate precisely the opposite. As the authors point out,

“Contrary to much of the public debate around political disengagement, the British public are not apathetic. There is now a great deal of research evidence to show that very large numbers of citizens are engaged in community and charity work outside of politics. There is also clear evidence that involvement in pressure politics – such as signing petitions, supporting consumer boycotts, joining campaign groups – has been growing significantly for many years. In addition, research shows that interest in ‘political issues’ is high.”

A politically conscious, concerned and engaged populus is there, in other words – it simply has next to no faith in the formal political process. As the report continues,

“Power’s own research and experience over the last eighteen months has established that the level of alienation felt towards politicians, the main political parties and the key institutions of the political system is extremely high and widespread.”

Power concludes by advocating a political system open to a much greater degree of participation by ordinary people – and some recent pieces provide much food for thought on how such a system might be brought about. Simon Maine’s review of a book by Boaventura de Sousa Santos is one good example which (while its sometimes relativist slant is a little dubious) convincingly challenges much mainstream thinking on representative democracy; and Alex Doherty’s interview with Mark Evans of the Project for a Participatory Society – UK provides an illuminating insight into some recently initiated efforts to bring about a meaningful, participatory democracy in this country. For anyone interested in these questions, both are well worth a read.