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The History of Ideas Podcast
with David Runciman

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Fixing Democracy: What’s Wrong with Referendums?

In today’s episode David talks to Alan Renwick from UCL’s Constitution Unit about the pros and cons of referendums. When does a democratic question need to be put direct to the people? Do some countries do it better than others? How can referendums be used to open up political debate? And how can we avoid a rerun of the pitfalls of the Brexit referendum?

There are just a few tickets left for the 3rd film in our autumn film season at the Regent Street cinema on Thursday 9th October: a screening of Rosa Luxemburg, followed by a live recording of PPF with philosopher and writer Lea Ypi. We’d love to see you there https://bit.ly/4nDuKoY

Next Up in Fixing Democracy: Compulsory Voting

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00:00 / 01:04

5 October 2025

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