PROSPECTS OF DELIBERATIVE POWER-SHARING IN AUSTRALIAN CITY COUNCILS? A NEW GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK FOR CO-CREATION

Despite the increase of empirical studies on institutionalised public deliberation in OECD countries, where Australia is one of the leading countries, institutionalised local co-creation task committees remain unexplored beyond Northern Europe (OECD 2020). The concept of power-sharing in the context of deliberation and co-creation is also relatively understudied. For this research project, I examine the prospects of deliberative power-sharing in city councils in Australia. I explore the concept of deliberative power-sharing by adapting and applying the Danish local co-creation task committee model, the Gentofte Model, to the democratic, political and institutional context of city councils in Australia (Sørensen & Torfing 2019). The Gentofte Model has been identified as a suitable power-sharing framework between democratically elected councillors and citizens to increase public trust, political legitimacy and bipartisanship because citizens impact public policy directly through distributed political decision-making power (De Jong, Neulen and Jansma 2019). My research project will use action research as the methodology. Specifically, a participatory action research approach will be used to co-develop and implement an institutionalised local co-creation task committee in an Australian city council. My lived-experience with deliberative power-sharing in co-creation from a Danish city council will be a part of the participatory action research process of developing new knowledge and transformative change with Australian mayors, councillors, local government CEOs and citizens (Bartels et al. 2020). The outcomes of my research project aim to contribute to the field of deliberative and participatory governance because the Danish local co-creation task committee model offers a new and deliberative approach to power-sharing between councillors and citizens which has not been explored beyond the North European countries.

Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal.