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On 11 February 2025, close to 100 academics, practitioners, and policymakers joined the launch of Deliberative Integrity: Risks and Responses in Mini-Public Governance, authored by Dr Lucy J. Parry and Professor Nicole Curato (University of Canberra). The report highlights risks facing deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) and offers strategies to safeguard their integrity.

We are delighted to welcome four new students to our Centre this year, each bringing fresh perspectives and valuable contributions to our research community. 

You are invited to a participatory book launch for André Bächtiger and John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times: Confronting Populism, Extremism, Denial, and Authoritarianism.

On 7-9 February, the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance (CDDGG) hosted the 2024 Deliberative Democracy Summer School at the Ann Harding Conference Centre, University of Canberra.

In 2024 the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, at the University of Canberra, turns 10 years old. In celebration, we are organising a seminar series that is open to all, addressing 10 of the most pressing questions facing deliberate democracy today.

Democratic Transformations: A conversation on systemic change
On 6 February 2024 at Juliet Room, Verity Lane Market, Sydney Building, 50 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra ACT

Reception: 5:30 pm
Panel discussion: 6:00 – 7:15 pm

Distinguished Professor John Dryzek has received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) during the award ceremony held at the University of Sydney on 29 November 2023.

Join us for a research workshop at QUT in 21-22 March 2024, exploring the future of the public sphere, in Australia and beyond. Designed for Australian-based ECRs and HDRs, the workshop is co-hosted by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance (University of Canberra) and the Digital Media Research Centre (QUT) and funded by the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA). Abstract and short CV to be submitted by 27 October.

This month, we were excited to host Dr Sonia Bussu from The Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV), University of Birmingham as a visiting scholar between 17 September to 30 September 2023. Dr Bussu works in the areas of participatory democracy and public policy. Her research aims to bridge divides between different literatures concerned with citizen engagement, social justice, and intersectional inclusion. She studies how participatory deliberative democracy, social movements, the commons, coproduction, community activism, participatory research can all enrich one another.

A hearty congratulations to Dr Hans Asenbaum from the Centre for his new (open access) publication with Oxford University Press, The Politics of Becoming – Anonymity and Democracy in the Digital Age. The book focuses on practical solutions to the problems of discrimination and identity confinement in political participation. Throughout the book, Dr Asenbaum hopes to facilitate an interdisciplinary exchange between different academic disciplines and different strands of democratic theory.

This semester we are excited to welcome a new PhD student, Olivia Mendoza, to the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Olivia is the recipient of the prestigious Deliberative Democracy PhD Scholarship offered to students aiming to specialise in one of the core research areas of the Centre.

Congratulations to our own Distinguished Professor John Dryzek, who has been elected to the British Academy, an honour given to scholars who have attained distinction in the social sciences and humanities. John has considerable international standing as a scholar in the areas of political science, democratic theory and practice at all levels from the local to the global, political philosophy, environmental politics and climate governance.

Congratulations to our Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Jordan McSwiney. Jordan has been accepted into the Younger Fellow Visiting Program at the Centre for Research on Extremism (C-REX), located at the University of Oslo. Launched in 2016, C-REX is a cross-disciplinary centre for the study of right-wing extremism, hate crime and political violence. Jordan will join leading scholars in this highly topical subject and will present his work on far-right violent extremism and political parties during his fellowship.

The world’s most eminent scholars on digital media and deliberative democracy, Professor Axel Bruns and Centenary Professor John Dryzek, will share their reflections on the crisis of communication in our times.

CFP: Deliberative Democracy Summer School 2024

6TH DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY SUMMER SCHOOL

7-9 February 2024

We are thrilled that our Centre's Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Hans Asenbaum, has received the ECPR Rising Star Award for his achievements as an early career researcher.

The Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance is offering a PhD scholarship for a domestic student starting in July 2023.

Our PhD student Mohammad Abdul-Hwas shares his passion to study and research refugee crisis with UC's UnCover.

Mohammad's parents’ and grandparents’ lived experiences of the ongoing Palestinian refugee crisis, that has lasted the past 70 years, has created a deep empathy for refugees. Connecting with Syrian refugees in Jordan who have similar lived experience drove Mohammad to research deliberative democracy, with the ambition to improve the experience and agency for people caught in a refugee crisis.

While democracy is usually conceived of a serious business, but Mathias Poulsen, showed us that democracy can be fun!

On 21 October, the Centre hosted a workshop led by visiting scholar Mathias Poulsen (Design School Kolding in Denmark), where CDDGG staff explored engaging, creative and fun ways of doing democracy through an embodied experience of what a more playful democracy might look and feel like.

Mathias draws on the Danish tradition of ”junk playgrounds” (similar to adventure playgrounds), which is framed as a kind of “agora”, a space for bodily, material inquiries into matters of mutual concern.
 
Staff collaborated on an improvised miniature junk playground, where we investigated the nature and future of democracy, as we engaged with an eclectic collection of discarded materials to build arguments and tell stories.

The report, Building Democratic Resilience, launched 13 October 2022, offers a framework for examining and improving the public sphere responses to violent extremism. It develops the concept of ‘democratic resilience’ drawing on the theory of deliberative democracy, and empirical research on countering violent extremism (CVE) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It explains how ‘democratic resilience’ differs from and supplements ‘community resilience’, which is the current resilience framework used by the NSW Government. The report offers key insights for academics, public servants, policy makers and the journalists working to develop strategies for tackling violent extremism.