“What single measure would help to strengthen democracy in your country? Would an improvement in electoral integrity help?” Share with us what you think.

Deepening Democracy is an online series of articles, responding to the September 2012 report by the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security, on improving the integrity of elections. The series is being curated by the Blavatnik School of Government and features contributions from students on the Master of Public Policy course at the School, as well as guest posts from Oxford and Cambridge scholars in politics and international relations.

In 2008, when the economic crisis hit, many expected the demise of ‘neoliberalism’ as the reigning economic philosophy. Yet four years on, there are still few alternatives on offer. New citizen movements, such as the indignados in Spain and Occupy movements in London, New York and elsewhere, have articulated a need for an alternative. In this series, we will explore how republicanism – and republicans – might help achieve this.

From the coverage of the US election in the UK news media it would be easy to get the impression that we are witnessing a single battle of giants, or a least of the giantly funded. In mid-October the Center for Responsive Politics reported that the campaigns of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama had raised almost $900 million combined. But the presidential election is not the only place where money talks loudly.

It’s a little over three weeks to go before America votes in the 2012 presidential election, and things have suddenly turned interesting. For a while, orthodoxy was that Obama was likely to get re-elected and, maybe, by a substantial margin. As late as early October, Romney was still seen as a weak candidate with a history of vote losing gaffes. Those of us who thought the GOP might win the White House were treated like Right-wing Cassandras. It seemed like the European Union was more likely to win a Nobel Peace Prize… Suddenly, the national polls are even and the swing states are getting close. At this dramatic point in the race, I’d make the following observations…

When Mitt Romney’s 47% comments came to light, many were surprised that Romney’s claim that 47% of households do not pay income taxes is, in fact, true. To many people, this is outrageous. Why should they be paying the federal taxes they do while so many fellow citizens get a free ride?

You would think that the US presidential campaign teams would have a pretty good idea of what sort of person is likely to vote for them. A recent book suggest that the Democrats have developed highly complex ways of figuring this out. On the other hand, given two recent events, I’m not sure the Republicans have any idea.

Aside from cementing Obama’s tenuous lead (Silver now puts Obama’s chances at above 80%), Mitt Romney’s ‘47% gaffe’ also proved unexpectedly useful, if vexing, for conservatives.