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. Politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions on social media. The combination of unaccountable, unreported dark money and its use to create targeted (and contradictory) political messages for individuals and groups means that we have no way of knowing how free and fair our elections have become.

Peter Geoghegan is a diligent, brilliant guide through a shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond. These threats to democracy have, for decades, been visible to anyone disposed to look for them’: Boris Johnson in 2019. 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. 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. The integrity and trustworthiness of elections is a fundamental requirement for a functioning democracy.

It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. And in the UK, Martin Moore’s landmark study Democracy Hacked showed how, in the space of just one election cycle, authoritarian governments, wealthy elites and fringe hackers figured out how to game elections, bypass democratic processes and turn social networks into battlefields. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. Geoghegan investigates politicians, fabulously well-funded partisan think tanks, propagandists who know how to game a rigged system, and the campaigners and regulators valiantly trying to stop them.

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.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. 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.

These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Praise for Democracy for Sale: ‘Thorough, gripping and vitally important’ Oliver Bullough’A brilliant description of the dark underbelly of modern democracy. 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. 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. 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.For example, Lawrence Lessig’s Republic, Lost and Jane Mayer’s Dark Money explained how a clique of billionaires has shaped and perverted American politics. 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. Peter Geoghegan is a diligent, brilliant guide through the shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond. The final part of the book deals with the transformation of our information ecosystem: the ways in which the automated targeted-advertising machines of social media platforms have been weaponised by rightwing actors to deliver precisely calibrated messages to voters, in ways that are completely opaque to the general public, as well as to regulators. 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.

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. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. 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. The middle section of the book explores how dark money has amplified the growing influence of the American right on British politics.And if that’s true, the key question for us at this moment in history is: how might our current system fail? Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and populists in many other countries are the beneficiaries. Politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions of people on social media. One of the most depressing parts of this narrative is the bland indifference of most mainstream UK media to these scandalous events. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.