< Back Dannica Fleuss Associate About Dannica Fleuss' research deals with conceptualizations of democratic legitimacy, philosophy of science and deliberative democracy. She is also a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer in political theory at Helmut Schmidt University (Hamburg).

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back [Event Invitation] Book Launch: Democracy versus Diablo in the USA and Australia 14 June 2024 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. You will hear from one of the book’s authors (John Dryzek) as well as special guests Professor John Gastil from Pennsylvania State University and Associate Professor Caroline Fischer of the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra. You will get an opportunity to discuss their points and deliberate your own ideas about the challenges facing democracy in Australia and the USA, and how best to confront them. There will also be a chance to meet and talk more informally. This book launch will be moderated by Keith Greaves from MosaicLab. About the speakers John Dryzek is Distinguished Professor and former Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. John Gastil is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science, and School of Public Policy at the Pennsylvania State University. Caroline Fisher is Associate Professor of Communication in the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra and co-author of the annual Digital News Report: Australia. Keith Greaves is the co-founder of MosaicLab, a team of facilitators and engagement practitioners specialising in high influence and deliberative engagement.

< Back Emily Foley Postdoctoral Research Fellow About Emily Foley researches social democratic and centre-left parties, focusing on party politics, political organisation, and participation in Australia. Her work also explores immigration policy-making and labour rights, with an interest in the intersection of democratic governance and social justice. Emily is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She is currently working on the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project Democratic Resilience: The Public Sphere and Extremist Attacks (2021–25). She is also a co-convener of the Australian Political Studies Association Political Organisation and Participation (POP) caucus.

< Back Assessing the reflexive capacity of international organisations: Can inclusivity translate into progressive policy change? Hayley Stevenson, University of Sheffield Tue 22 July 2014 11:00am - 12:00pm Fishbowl, Building 24, University of Canberra Abstract Recent research confirms a trend of inclusion in global governance: international organizations are ‘opening up’ to civil society. This trend may be cautiously welcomed by scholars and activists concerned with the ‘democratic deficit’ of global governance, as well as ‘epistemic democrats’ influenced by the Aristotelian principle that ‘many heads are better than one’. Yet, we still have a limited understanding of the potential for diverse participation to contribute to policy change in IOs. The nature and scope of ‘reflexive capacity’ at multiple levels of IO agency is largely unclear. Understanding the ways in which heterogeneous perspectives and diverse normative critiques are received, interpreted, and processed is essential to ensure that inclusion is not reduced to the shallow accommodation of civil society. This paper presents a study into the potential for transforming inclusivity into progressive institutional change. Focusing on emerging innovation in environmental policy, the project aims to (a) identify the different discourses that currently exist about the environment-economy nexus; (b) determine how IOs deal with discursive heterogeneity in the process of developing new sustainability strategies; and (c) determine how the means of presenting diverse ideas and delivering critique affects how it is received, interpreted, and processed by IOs. About the speaker Hayley Stevenson is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sheffield (UK), and an ESRC Future Research Leader (2013-2016). Her principal research interests include: global environmental politics and climate change, constructivist theory of International Relations, global civil society, legitimacy in international relations, and deliberative global governance. She is the author of Institutionalizing Unsustainability: The Paradox of Global Climate Governance (University of California Press, 2013); and Democratizing Global Climate Governance (with John S. Dryzek, Cambridge University Press 2014). Previous Next

< Back Deliberative policy analysis: What are its conditions of possibility? Hendrik Wagenaar, University of Sheffield Tue 11 April 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In the Introduction to our book Deliberative Policy Analysis Maarten Hajer and I posed the question: What kind of policy analysis might be relevant to understanding governance in the emerging network society. Our answer was: a policy analysis that is interpretive, practice-oriented, and deliberative. Although I do not claim that DPA has become a school or a household term, the different elements we listed have separately all made great strides in policy analysis in the past 15 years. Interpretive policy analysis has its own journal, conferences and sections in academic organizations; practice theory in policy analysis has taken off and diversified, and deliberation as a policy-analytic approach can be found in ideals of action research and co-producing research with stakeholders. But is DPA possible as an integrated package? To obtain an answer to this question I want to discuss a case of failed DPA: my three-year international comparative study of prostitution policy in the Netherlands and Austria. We tried to apply the full package. Over a period of four years, the study was developed and executed in close cooperation with local policy makers, had a strong interpretive component, zoomed in on administrative practices, yet it ended – at least on the Dutch side – in conflict and acrimony. I would like to use the seminar to explore what went wrong and if we can identify the conditions for successful DPA in real-word policy settings. About the speaker Hendrik Wagenaar is professor at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield. He is also Associate Director of the Crick Centre for Understanding Politics at that university. He publishes in the areas of participatory democracy, prostitution policy, interpretive policy analysis and practice theory. He is author of Meaning in Action: Interpretation and Dialogue in Policy Analysis (M.E. Sharpe, 2011), and co-editor of Practices of Freedom: Decentered Governance, Conflict and Democratic Participation (Cambridge University Press, 2014) He is member of the core group, and one of the chairs of Working Group 1 (Policy and Politics) of the COST Action: ‘Comparing European Prostitution Policies’. His book Designing Prostitution Policy: Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade (with Helga Amesberger and Sietske Altink) will be published by Policy Press in April 2017. Previous Next

New Books on Democracy Play Video Play Video 33:42 Book Drop Series S4E1: Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times Play Video Play Video 30:16 Book Launch: Complementary Democracy: The Art of Deliberative Listening, Matt Qvortrup Play Video Play Video 12:31 Book Drop Series S3E3: Deliberative Global Governance Play Video Play Video 06:36 Book Drop Series S3E1: The Legitimacy of Citizen-led Deliberative Democracy Play Video Play Video 13:20 Book Drop Series S3E1: Anthropocene Encounters Play Video Play Video 11:27 Book Drop Series S2E5: Meaning and Action: Play Video Play Video 08:19 Book Drop S1E4: Ethics of Multiple Citizenship Play Video Play Video 10:00 Book Drop S1E6: Global Environmental Politics: Problems, Policy and Practice Play Video Play Video 12:10 Book Drop S1E5: Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice Play Video Play Video 16:31 Book Drop S1E3: The Politics of the Anthropocene Play Video Play Video 15:41 Book Drop S1E2: Mapping and Measuring Deliberation Play Video Play Video 13:05 Book Drop S1E1: Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy

< Back Catherine Settle Associate About Catherine’s doctoral research into the citizen’s experience of epistemic practices when deliberative mini-publics are applied in Australian health policy settings focused her attention on the benefits of closing the gap between the theory and practice of deliberative democracy.

Former PhD student < Back Penelope Marshall Former PhD student About Penelope completed her dissertation entitled ‘Playing for Sheep Stations: A Discourse Analysis of Wild Dog Management and Control in New South Wales, Australia’ in 2013 at the Australian National University.

< Back From elected to connected: Designing for recursive representation Nick Vlahos, Selen Ercan, Nardine Alnemr and John Dryzek (University of Canberra), Andrew Leigh (MP) Tue 4 May 2021 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel. Abstract Recent thinking on improving the deliberative qualities of elected representation can be captured under the broad heading of what Jane Mansbridge terms recursive representation, which seeks ongoing interaction between representatives and their constituents. This paper explores the possibilities of facilitating such interaction by establishing a series of deliberative townhalls where the constituents meet their elected representatives and discuss the issues of common concern. Empirically, the paper draws on a recent experiment in ‘directly representative democracy’ in Australia, which involved designing two deliberative town halls with a Federal Member of the Parliament to discuss a controversial issue (mitochondrial donation) ahead of a parliamentary debate on this issue. Drawing on the interviews with the participants of these town halls, we argue that recursive representation works well in directly representative democracy to the degree three criteria of deliberative capacity are met: authenticity, inclusion and consequentiality. The paper unpacks the meaning of each criteria from the perspective of town hall participants and discusses their relevance for the theory and practice of recursive representation. About the speakers Nick Vlahos is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Selen Ercan is an Associate Professor of Politics at the Institute’s Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Nardine Alnemr is a PhD candidate at the entre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. John Dryzek is Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Centenary Professor in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis. Andrew Leigh is a Member of the Australian House of Representatives. Previous Next

< Back NATIVE TITLE AS A DELIBERATIVE SPACE FOR INDIGENOUS SELF-DETERMINATION About this event In 1992, the High Court of Australia delivered its historic Mabo v Queensland (No 2) decision, declaring Australian law could now recognise the pre-colonial rights (‘native title’) of Indigenous people to their traditional lands under their own laws. However, under Australian settler-colonial law, native title is constructed as a domestic property right and not as a set of political, cultural or sovereign rights’. Consequently, Indigenous peoples claims to self-determination has attained a prominent place in contemporary political and public debates on Indigenous-state relations in Australia. With Australia continuing to reject Indigenous self-determination, Aboriginal people must engage pragmatically and innovatively with state policies and institutions. In this presentation McCaul discusses examples of democratic innovation within Australia’s native title system as practiced by Aboriginal people focusing on comprehensive settlement agreements between Indigenous groups and the state; participatory governance in relation to the environmental management of Indigenous lands; and efforts to re-build Indigenous nationhood and traditional institutions of governance. McCaul argues native title has created space for public deliberation on self-determination and efforts to decolonise relations, governance, and policymaking between Indigenous polities and the settler colonial state. Justin McCaul is a descendent of the Mbarbarum Traditional Owners of far north Queensland. He joined ANU College of Law as an Associate Lecturer/PhD Candidate in February 2019. He has many years of experience working in native title and Indigenous policy in Australia for several non-government organisations including Oxfam Australia. He also worked in Cambodia on rural development and biodiversity conservation projects with Indigenous groups in northeast Cambodia. Before joining ANU he worked at the National Native Title Council researching the challenges Indigenous organisations face utilising their native title rights. His PhD uses deliberative democracy theory to discuss how Indigenous groups use their native title rights to assert self-determination claims and engage in public policy. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

< Back Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice Edited By Stephen Elstub, Selen A. Ercan, and Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça 2018 , Routledge Summary Deliberative democracy is an approach to democracy that requires collective decision-making to be preceded by reasoned, inclusive, and respectful debate for it to be legitimate. It has become an increasingly dominant approach to democracy over the last few decades. In recent years, there has been a particular focus on ‘deliberative systems.’ A systemic approach to deliberative democracy opens up a new way of thinking about public deliberation in both theory and practice. It suggests understanding deliberation as a communicative activity that occurs in a diversity of spaces, and emphasizes the need for interconnection between these spaces. It offers promising solutions to some of the long-standing theoretical issues in the deliberative democracy literature such as legitimation, inclusion, representation, as well as the interaction and interconnection between public opinion formation and decision-making sites more generally. The deliberative systems approach also offers a new way of conceptualizing and studying the practice of deliberation in contemporary democracies. Despite its conceptual and practical appeal, the concept of deliberative systems also entails potential problems and raises several important questions. These include the relationship with the parts and the whole of the deliberative system, the prospects of its institutionalization, and various difficulties related to its empirical analysis. The deliberative systems approach therefore requires greater theoretical critical scrutiny, and empirical investigation. This book contributes to this endeavour by bringing together cutting edge research on the theory and practice of deliberative systems. It will identify the key challenges against the concept to enhance understanding of both its prospects and problems promoting its refinement accordingly. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Critical Policy Studies. Read more Previous Next

< Back Genevieve Johnson Associate About Genevieve Fuji Johnson studies and teaches democratic theory, feminist political thought, interpretive approaches to policy analysis, and a range of current public policy issues. She is a Professor of Political Science at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, Canada.

< Back Representing the disadvantaged? Conceptions of representation in a citizens' jury in Switzerland Alexander Geisler, University of Geneva Tue 18 February 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Crackenback, NSW Abstract While referendums and initiatives are part and parcel of Swiss direct democracy, democratic innovations based on random selection remain underexplored. One such example are Citizens’ Juries assessing popular votes and informing fellow voters via a summary statement, as in the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR). Fishkin (2018, 2013) has suggested that citizens bring mostly their own interests to the table in larger types of such deliberative gatherings. Challenging this finding, evidence collected from a Swiss pilot CIR in the municipality of Sion involving twenty randomly selected voters’ points to more complex perceptions of whom panelists perceive to represent. The participants reported that they had also represented disadvantaged groups inside and outside their political jurisdiction when discussing an upcoming popular initiative on affordable housing. This suggests that conceptions of representation on part of the panelists in a minipublic and particularly in the CIR may be more complex than previously assumed. Crucially, panelists taking stances of other groups may affect existing shortcomings of inclusion and representation occurring in minipublics of small size. About the speaker Since November 2018, Alexander worked as a PhD candidate at the University of Geneva in the project “A non-populist theory of direct democracy”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation under supervision of Professor Nenad Stojanovic. The project involves conducting two CIR-like mini-public pilots in Switzerland. He earned his Master of Arts in Empirical Political and Social Research (2018) at the University of Stuttgart. After graduation, he worked at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Stuttgart as a research and teaching assistant. During this period, he was involved in two projects: creating a database to track participatory processes in the municipalities of South-West Germany and managing an online network of universities that engage in research on civic participation. His research interests are in the fields of deliberative democracy, political behaviour, the theory and practice of democratic innovations, and social cognition. Previous Next

< Back Operationalizing democratic listening Mary F (Molly) Scudder, Purdue University Tue 5 November 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In order to capture the epistemic, ethical, or democratic benefits of deliberation, people must listen to one another. In fact, listening is constitutive of the deliberative act. Therefore, finding ways to evaluate listening is essential to the project of deliberative democracy. In this paper, I consider how to measure the act of listening in small-scale face-to-face deliberative encounters. Specifically, I tackle the observational challenge of measuring the act of listening itself, as opposed to listening outcomes. Prior work measures listening by focusing on narrow constructs like aural recall, or by emphasizing the outcomes we hope listening might bring about, such as responsiveness. I show that each of these measures, in isolation, is inadequate and fails to capture the most democratically meaningful aspects of listening. I go on to explain, however, that these measures can be usefully combined into a lexical scale that captures different degrees of, or steps toward democratic listening. I also propose new measures to include within such an index, including the perception of speakers themselves, whether they feel as if others have listened to them. About the speaker Dr. Mary F (Molly) Scudder is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Purdue University. She received her PhD from the University of Virginia. She specializes in democratic theory, especially practices of citizenship and the conditions of meaningfully democratic deliberation in contexts of deep difference. She has published articles in Polity and Political Studies and is currently wrapping up work on a book investigating how citizen listening can move deliberation in the direction of greater democracy. Previous Next

< Back EROSION OF DEMOCRACY AND DEMOCRATIC RESILIENCE ABSTRACT Research on erosion of democracy has blossomed during the last decade. Much less scholarly attention has been devoted to the issue of democratic resilience. But how can we understand democratic resilience? How can we conceptualize it? What role do institutions, actors and structural factors play? I sketch three potential reactions of resilient democratic regimes to erosion of democracy: to withstand without changes, to adapt through internal changes, and to recover without losing the democratic character of its regime and its core institutions, organizations and procedures.. BIO Wolfgang Merkel is Prof. of Political Science at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and Senior Scholar of the Democracy Institute at Central European University in Budapest. He is i.a. a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and a Prof. em. At Humboldt University of Berlin. Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Our Senior Research Fellow, Dr Hans Asenbaum, has published his new book 'The Politics of Becoming' 21 Sept 2023 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. Dr Asenbaum has been intrigued by questions about participatory and radical democracy for a long time. In particular, the role of our identities and how when come together to do politics, we judge each other on our looks. With a desire to understand and question this, Dr Asenbaum developed a curiosity about the role of anonymity in democracy. He purposefully asks, ‘What happens if we can't tell each other's race, gender, sexuality, class, age etc.?’ He began exploring this question at the University of Westminster during his PhD, under the supervision of Professor Graham Smith . The result of this investigation is his new book: ‘The Politics of Becoming’, which provides an in-depth analysis and theorization of anonymity in democratic participation. When asked about the journey to this point, an elated Dr Asenbaum remarked “my thesis builds the foundation for this book, and it has been a 10-year process from initiation to publication. It has been quite a journey, and I could not be happier about the result and the wonderful people I met on the way and who are all part of this project.” Dr Asenbaum’s book strengthens our research in the areas of citizens engagement , identity politics and democratic theory .

< Back Anne Nygaard Jedzini PhD Candidate About Anne Nygaard Jedzini is a PhD researcher on power-sharing at Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at University of Canberra. She is the recipient of the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative 2021 PhD Scholarship. Anne is the former Vice Mayor and Councillor of the City of Aarhus in Denmark where she held public office from 2014-2018. The City of Aarhus is her Danish hometown and where she is originally from. Anne is currently elected as the Australian Political Studies Association Postgraduate Caucus representative and is a member of the Australian Political Studies Association's Executive Committee. She is also currently appointed as the HDR member on the External Review Panel for the Faculty for Business, Government & Law at University of Canberra. For her PhD, Anne examines how power is shared, exercised and experienced, and to what extent power-sharing has deliberative dimensions in deliberative and participatory processes (democratic innovations) in Australian local governments. More specifically, her PhD examines the democratic, political and institutional conditions for power-sharing through deliberation between councillors and community members in a comparative case study of three Australian local government councils. She is set to complete her PhD by June, 2024. Anne has extensive experience from Danish politics. As Vice Mayor, she served as political member of five committees. Two of these committees were deliberative co-creation task committees with both councillors and relevant members of the public. During her time in public office, Anne focused on how members of the community could have more direct impact on public policymaking. She also focused on how to create the best possible conditions for startups, entrepreneurs and small business owners. Throughout her time in Danish politics, Anne ran multiple political bipartisan campaigns. These campaigns sought to bring different perspectives, lived-experiences and worldviews together over issues such as lack of democratic participation, enablement of young people's voices and gender inequality in local government politics. Much of her research interests stem from her lived-experience with power, democratic innovations and policymaking in Denmark. Anne's research interests include power and power-sharing in institutions/organisations, democratic innovations, deliberative/participatory democracy, political leadership, Australian politics and qualitative research methods. PhD supervisors Nicole Curato (Primary Supervisor) Selen Ercan (Secondary Supervisor) Academic Experience 01.07.2023-present. Job Title: Academic Tutor in Power and Policymaking . Organisation: Griffith School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Australia. Responsibility: Academic tutor and marker for a total of thirty undergraduate students in the unit, Power and Policymaking , throughout trimester 2. 01.08.2021-present. Job Title: Academic Tutor in Political Leadership . Organisation: Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra, Australia. Responsibility : Academic tutor and marker for a total of forty undergraduate students in the unit, Political Leadership , throughout semester 2. 01.02.2022-01.12.2022. Job Title: Academic Tutor in Introductions to Politics and Government . Organisation: Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra, Australia. Responsibility: Academic tutor and marker for a total of forty undergraduate students in the unit, Introductions to Politics and Government , throughout semester 1 and 2. 01.08.2021-01.12.2022. Job Title: Academic Tutor in Investigating and Explaining Society . Organisation: Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra, Australia. Responsibility : Academic tutor and marker for a total of sixty undergraduate students in the unit, Investigating and Explaining Society , throughout semester 2. 01.03.2021-01.07.2021. Job Title: Event Manager on Australian Citizens’ Jury on Genome Editing . Organisation: Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra, Australia. Responsibility: Event manage the research project Australian Citizens’ Jury on Genome Editing which was also a three-day event held at the Museum of Australian Democracy from June 17-20, 2021. 01.08.2020-31.12.2020. Job Title: Senior Research Assistant on “Network Analysis of Emissions of Transport and Gas Users in the ACT.” Organisation: Griffith University, Australia. Responsibility: Identify key transport emission stakeholders in the ACT to determine their carbon footprint. Professional Experience 01.02.2019-01.08.2020. Job Title: Sales and Business Development Director. Organisation: Suncil International ApS, Australia. Responsibility: Develop market strategy across Australia through strategic business development. 01.04.2018-01.02.2019. Job Title: Business Developer. Organisation: Suncil International ApS, Denmark. Responsibility: Stakeholder management of customers and business partners in EU and MENA region. Public Office 01.01.2014-01.01.2018. Job Title: Vice Mayor and Councillor: Political member of The Committee of Volunteering and Co-creation Political member of The Committee of Co-Citizenship Political member of The Committee of Finance Political member of The Committee of Children and Young People Political member of The Committee of Gender Equality and Diversity Organisation: Aarhus Municipality, Denmark. Responsibility: Preside over the political governance of the City of Aarhus through evidence-based policy decisions. Non-Peer Reviewed Publications Jedzini, Anne Nygaard. 2023. Politicians must share deliberative power to increase legitimacy. Type of Publication: Blog article published March 16, 2023 in the European Consortium’s Political Science Research blog, The Loop. Journal Articles under Peer Review Jedzini, Anne Nygaard. 2021. How do city council politicians facilitate co-creation? Evidence from Australia and Denmark. Type of Publication: Empirical journal article submitted November 15, 2021 in the Australian Journal of Political Science. Author Statement: I undertook an interpretivist empirical study of in-depth interviews with sixteen Danish and Australian city council politicians. I specifically explored what motivates city council politicians to practice and participate in co-creation processes, what societal stakeholders are included in co-creation processes and what the similarities and differences of co-creation processes are in Danish and Australian local governments in urban and regional areas. I recruited the research participants through my own political networks, transcribed the audio files of the interviews, wrote the interviews up in an analytical table, and did a thematic analysis of the research data against my main and sub-research questions. Academic Conferences 20.06.2022-22.06.2022. Title: Jedzini, Anne Nygaard. 2021. How do city council politicians understand and facilitate co-creation? An explorative study of Australian and Danish local governments. Organisation: Deliberative Democracy and Public Opinion Summer School, Turku, Finland. Details: Deliberative democracy conference with participation of deliberative democracy scholars from across the world. 09.06.2022-11.06.2022. Title: Jedzini, Anne Nygaard. 2021. How do city council politicians understand and facilitate co-creation? An explorative study of Australian and Danish local governments. Organisation: The Transatlantic Dialogue 16, Roskilde, Denmark. Details: Public administration conference with participation of American and European public administration scholars. 16.02.2022-17.02.2022. Title: Jedzini, Anne Nygaard. 2021. How do city council politicians understand and facilitate co-creation? Evidence from Australia and Denmark. Organisation: Australian Political Studies Association, Brisbane, Australia. Details: POP (Political Organisations & Participation) 2022 Workshop for emerging political science scholars in Australia. Presentations 21.02.2023. Title: Jedzini, Anne Nygaard. 2023. Democratic Innovations: From Aarhus to ACT. Organisation: City Renewable Authority, ACT Government and International Association for Public Participation Australasia, Canberra, Australia. Details: ‘Engaging in our city’ IAP2 Local Network breakfast event with participation of three speakers and sixty engagement practitioners from the public, private and civic sector in the ACT. Scholarships and Prizes 09.11.2021. Prize: Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning for the Investigating and Explaining Society unit team. Organisation: University of Canberra Teaching Excellence Awards and Citations, University of Canberra. 23.02.2021. Scholarship: Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative 2021 PhD Scholarship. Organisation: Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra. Academic Administration 01.04.2023-present. Title: Research Student Member. Organisation: External Review Panel for the University of Canberra Faculty for Business, Government & Law, Australia. 01.12.2022-present. Title: Postgraduate Caucus Representative. Organisation: Australian Political Studies Association Executive Committee, Australian Political Studies Association, Australia. 01.03.2022-31.01.2023. Title: Higher Degree by Research Representative. Organisation: Graduate Research Committee, University of Canberra, Australia. 01.09.2020-31.12.2020. Title: Student Advisory Board Member. Organisation: The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Australia. 01.01.2020-31.12.2020. Title: Master Student Board Member. Organisation: The Academic Board, La Trobe University, Australia. Political Advisory 26.07.2022-28.07.2022. Title: Political intern for Dr. Helen Haines MP Independent Member for Indi. Organisation: House of Representatives, Parliament of Australia, Australia. 01.08.2021-01.06.2022. Title: Deliberative Democracy Expert. Organisation: Kim for Canberra Party, Australia. 01.08.2016-01.12.2016. Title: Campaign Organiser. Organisation: The Danish Social Liberal Party’s U.S. Election Volunteer Team, Denmark. 01.01.2015-01.12.2016. Title: Political Advocate. Organisation: Danes for Hillary, Denmark. Research Interests Deliberative/participatory democracy Democratic/political institutions Democratic innovations Public administration Public governance Political leadership Australian politics Qualitative research methods

< Back Jordan McSwiney Senior Research Fellow About Jordan McSwiney is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. He completed his PhD at The University of Sydney in 2021. Jordan’s research focuses on the far right, with a particular focus on their communication and organisation. His work has been published in Information, Communication & Society, New Media & Society, and Patterns of Prejudice , among others. He is the author of Far-right political parties in Australia: Disorganisation and electoral failure (Routledge). At the Centre, Jordan is working on the project ‘Democratic Resilience: The Public Sphere and Extremist Attacks’ (Discovery Project, funded by Australian Research Council, 2021-25) Key Publications McSwiney, J. (2024). Far-right political parties in Australia: Disorganisation and electoral failure . Routledge. McSwiney, J., & Sengul, K. (2024). Humour, ridicule, and the far right: Mainstreaming exclusion through online animation . Television and New Media , 25(4), 315-333. Jasser, G., McSwiney, J., Pertwee, E., & Zannettou, S. (2023). ‘ Welcome to #GabFam’: Far-right virtual community on Gab . New Media & Society, 25 (7), 1728–1745. McSwiney, J., Vaughan, M. Heft, A., & Hoffman., M. (2021). Sharing the hate? Memes and transnationality in the far right’s digital visual culture . Information, Communication & Society , 24 (16) 2502-2521. McSwiney, J. (2021). Social networks and digital organisation: Far right parties at the 2019 Australian federal election .  Information, Communication & Society , 24 (10), 1401-1418. A full list of Jordan McSwiney’s publications is available here . Public Engagement Australian efforts on Islamophobia flag despite Christchurch wake-up call . Al Jazeera . 2024, March 15. Recovering the ‘Aryan worldview’: the Western Australian book publisher under scrutiny over far-right texts . The Guardian . 2024, January 15 “It’s just a joke”: why we need to pay attention to far-right humour . RightNow! Blog, Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX). 2024, January 8. Why it’s so hard to stop neo-Nazi public hate parades . The Age . 2023, November 12. Far-right groups targeting young people, inquiry finds . The Age . 2022, August 30. Right-wing parties line up for make-or-break Victorian state election . The New Daily . 2022, 22 June. Dr Jordan McSwiney on One Nation & Western Civilisation . Yeah Nah Pasaran! 2022, 9 June. Labor and the Liberals are waging an election meme war – but what is the point? The Guardian . 2022, May 1. Visiting Appointments 2023 - Visiting Fellow. Centre for Research on Extremism (C-REX), University of Oslo, Norway. 2020 - Research Fellow, Digitalisation and the Transnational Public Sphere, Wizenbaum Institute, Berlin, Germany 2019 - Doctoral Fellow, WZB Berlin, Berlin, Germany

< Back Inclusion and the meta-conversation: Structural topic modelling the Scottish Independence Referendum John Parkinson, Maastricht University Tue 2 July 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract I will presenting full results of my big data analysis of the Scottish indyref debate from 2012 to 2014, and show (a) that, in terms of topics being discussed, the real divide was not between Yes and No, but between elite and everyday conversations; (b) that economic issues were especially divided; and (c) that the single biggest topic was the meta-conversation, with citizens holding each other to deliberative norms in public. About the speaker John Parkinson is Adjunct Professor of Politics. He works on the relationships between formal policy making and a wide variety of practices in the public sphere, crossing boundaries between normative political theory, public policy, political sociology, and cultural studies. He is a leading proponent of the ‘deliberative systems’ approach, as well as the symbolic, discursive, performative aspects of policy and democratic politics. His books include Deliberating in the Real World (Oxford, 2006), Deliberative Systems (Cambridge, 2012), Democracy and Public Space (Oxford, 2012), and, with Centre Associate André Bächtiger, Mapping and Measuring Deliberation, forthcoming with Oxford in 2018. His current research project with Núria Franco-Guillén is the ARC-funded ‘Sparking a National Conversation’, which is developing new electronic social science tools to map and track claims over time and space in two cases: the Scottish independence debate of 2012-14, and the campaign to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian constitution, 2015-17. Previous Next

< Back Rhetorics of expertise and local knowledge in citizens' juries on wind farm development Sara Drury, Wabash College Tue 7 May 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Today’s global political environment increasingly faces issues that spark tensions between expertise and local knowledge. Socio-scientific issues draw attention towards this tension, as they require negotiation across and through multiple modes of evidence. Democratic innovations, such as deliberative citizens’ juries, been proposed as a means of managing these tensions and as a way of creating representative, fairer decision making. But there are questions around participatory processes, the utilization of expertise, and deliberative quality. The 2013-2014 “Citizens’ juries on wind farm development in Scotland” offers an opportunity to examine how different types of evidence impact deliberative quality in participatory public deliberation. Using transcripts from the citizens’ juries on wind farm development, this paper analyzes arguments from expertise and arguments from experiences. Through a critical-interpretative research methodology utilizing theories of argumentation, we demonstrate how arguments relating to scientific evidence prominently functioned as de facto reasoning whereas arguments with economic evidence more prominently interacted with local knowledge, experiences, and engagement. The findings offer implications for deliberative design to improve and promote deliberative quality. About the speaker Sara A. Mehltretter Drury, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Chair of Rhetoric at Wabash College, a liberal arts college in Indiana, U.S.A. She also serves as Director of Wabash Democracy and Public Discourse, an interdisciplinary initiative that partners with communities to hold dialogue and deliberation events. Drury’s research focuses on the intersections of rhetoric and deliberative democracy, with particular attention to argumentation and political judgment. From 2017-2018, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Previous Next