What is the Democracy Review?

The LSESU Democracy Review is an in-depth evaluation and reform of the SU's democratic structure. We know it is not working as efficiently and effectively as it could be for all LSE students. 

We have partnered with DemSoc, an international non-profit organisation that has previously worked on democracy reviews at Greenwich and Exeter Universities Students' Unions', to undergo this endeavour.

What has been done so far?

We have engaged in student surveys and focus groups to collect detailed student feedback on what students need from the SU democratic structure going forward.

We held a Democracy Summit where a representative body of 24 students participated in three deliberative sessions to learn about democracy and make recommendations to the SU. You can find the full report on the Summit and their recommendations here. 

We put the new democratic structure up to an all student vote where it was approved by students! And, the Trustee Board reviewed the passed motion and approved it as well. This means, the Union now officially has a new democratic structure! You can find our new byelaws here. 

What still needs to be done?

Now, we will be working on implementing the changes! We are trying to bring as much of it as possible in for 2022/23, and everything will be fully in place for the year 2023/24.

Independent academics will be conducting research and evaluation of the entire LSESU Democracy Review process. 

So far we have introduced the new Town Halls with embedded Accountability Board, rehauled how students submit Policy Proposals, and run our first Student Panel sessions.