Funded by the CNPq – National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Brazil).

This project examines the relationship between complex issues and democracy, focusing on the challenges that emerging technologies pose to democratic governance. Complex issues often remain difficult for citizens to fully understand, which can reinforce technocratic and expert-driven forms of decision-making. At the same time, they reshape social and political life by transforming how people interact, deliberate, experience inequalities, and respond to fundamental questions of collective wellbeing and survival. The scale and urgency of these challenges can also create pressures for more authoritarian forms of governance, given the time, uncertainty, and contestation inherent in democratic decision-making.

The project focuses on two contemporary issues with far-reaching political implications: artificial intelligence and genome editing. It examines efforts to democratise decision-making in these areas, with particular attention to civil society mobilisation, regulatory debates, individual and collective forms of resistance, and participatory initiatives that open expert knowledge to public scrutiny and citizen deliberation.

The research is organised around three interconnected strands. First, it analyses parliamentary debates, including legislation, bills under consideration, and public hearings on artificial intelligence and genome editing. Second, it maps the public agenda by examining debates across the news media and digital public sphere. Third, it identifies and analyses democratic innovations and other political initiatives that seek to broaden public participation in decisions about these technologies.

The project is led by Professor Ricardo F. Mendonça (Department of Political Science, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy, University of Canberra). It brings together 15 researchers from five Brazilian universities—MARGEM/UFMG, UNILA, UFG, UFPA, and UFPE—and is developed in close collaboration with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy through the work of Professor Selen Ercan, Associate Professor Hans Asenbaum, and Centre’s Adjunct Professor Nicole Curato.