Yesterday evening Demos was jam-packed for the launch of the Everyday Democracy Index. Paul Skidmore unveiled the first exciting set of results, with an engaging response from Professor Timothy Garton Ash.

Rather than relying solely on traditional democratic indicators like electoral turnout, the EDI also measures how good countries are at empowering their citizens in everyday spheres of life like neighbourhoods and communities, workplaces, public services and even the family.

If you want to see the geographical patterns in empowerment across Europe, or learn why Britain has the second biggest gap between personal and collective optimism (the ‘i’m ok – they’re not’ syndrome) you can read the pamphlet, but you should also check out our interactive website. It shows you how we made the index, and lets you pull it apart, put it together again and feed back to us what you did. The graphics are a bit fancy-dan, so you may need to update your browser or get a cheeky plug in.

If all that sounds too much like hard work, why not listen to a podcast interview with the authors  over on the podcast page.

This is just the beginning for the EDI, so watch this space...

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