Patrick Basham is a former adjunct scholar and senior fellow of the Cato Institute, and the founding Director (in 2006) of the Democracy Institute. Basham was previously the founding director of the Social Affairs Centre at the Canadian Fraser Institute. He has published a number of books and contributed articles to a range of major US newspapers. Basham studied political science at Carleton University, the University of Houston and University of Cambridge, earning B.A. and M.A. degrees from the former institutions. Basham has claimed he holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge; however, he withdrew from the university without gaining the qualification. Issues with his credentials and academic claims have been highlighted in The BMJ.

Controversy

In December 2005 Basham wrote an article for the Washington Times which praised the Canadian Conservative Stephen Harper as "pro-free trade, pro-Iraq war, anti-Kyoto and socially conservative". Harper publicly objected, saying that the description "greatly oversimplifies my positions." Harper went on to form a minority government after the January 2006 election. During the 2020 United States presidential election, Basham made comments supporting the Trump campaign's false claims of electoral fraud in an article he authored for the Daily Express, a middle-market British tabloid newspaper. Throughout the campaign, the Daily Express published polls commissioned with Basham's Democracy Institute showing that Trump would win with a landslide victory.

Books

He contributed to the 2004 book Iraq: Opposing Viewpoints, edited by David Haugen.