Why Politics Fails

Brought to you by Penguin.

Why do the revolving doors of power always leave us disappointed? In Why Politics Fails, award-winning Oxford professor Ben Ansell shows that it''s not the politicians that are the problem, it''s that our collective goals result in five political ''traps''.

Democracy: we all want a say in how we''re governed, but it''s impossible to have any true ''will of the people''. Equality: we want to be treated equally, but equal rights and equal outcomes undermine each other. Solidarity: we want a safety net when times are tough, but often we care about solidarity only when we need it ourselves. Security: we want protecting from harm, but not if it undermines our freedoms. Prosperity: we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.

You''ve probably noticed a pattern here, which is that our self-interest undermines our ability to deliver on our collective goals. And these traps reinforce one another, so a polarized democracy can worsen inequality; a threadbare social safety net can worsen crime; runaway climate change will threaten global peace.

Drawing on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit and using his own counterintuitive and pathbreaking research - on why democracy thrives under high inequality, and how increased political and social equality can lead to greater class inequality - Ansell vividly illustrates how we can escape the political traps of our imperfect world. He shows that politics won''t end, but that it doesn''t have to fail.