Search Results

< Back Citizen agency in democratic innovation: insights from citizen-led governance innovations (CLGIS) Carolyn Hendriks & Albert Dzur Tue 17 July 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Many aspects of contemporary politics and its institutional practices frustrate citizens. But what kinds of democratic reforms do citizens wish to see, and how do they wish to achieve and sustain them? Most scholars and practitioners of democratic innovation assume that citizens would prefer to engage in politics via more deliberative and participatory forums. However, as critics have argued participatory forums can be piecemeal and tokenistic, and often disempower and co-opt citizens by serving the state and corporate interests (e.g. Lee, McQuarrie, and Walker 2015). For insights into how to make democratic reform more substantive and sustained, we examine citizen-led, action-oriented, and highly pragmatic forms of democratic innovation. We are particularly interested in the collective journeys that citizens themselves embark on to resolve — not just participate in — traditional public policy problems. In this paper we empirically examine various cases of Citizen-Led Governance Innovation (CLGI) where citizens are creating democratic pathways to their own policy and reform endeavours. We show how these citizen innovators are not waiting to be invited into government, or agitating from the sidelines. Instead they are taking proactive and pragmatic steps to address policy failures or dysfunctional institutions. In so doing, citizens self-organise and adopt simple, inclusive, and replicable procedures that foster citizen buy-in and ownership. Citizen agency in CLGIs differs from what is found in other forms of democratic innovation, and related civic practices, such as activism, community organising, and volunteer work and may help address concerns about substance and sustainability. We consider the implications of our findings for debates on democratic innovation and, more broadly, deliberative democracy. About the speakers Carolyn Hendriks is an Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. Her work examines democratic aspects of contemporary governance, particularly with respect to participation, deliberation, inclusion and representation. She has taught and published widely on democratic innovation, public deliberation, interpretive methods, network governance and environmental politics. Her current research projects are exploring the possibilities of democratic innovation within conventional and alternative modes of political participation. Carolyn is an appointed member of newDemocracy's Research Committee and sits on the editorial board of several international journals, including the European Journal of Political Research. Albert W. Dzur is a democratic theorist with an interest in citizen participation and power-sharing in education, criminal justice, and public administration. He is the author of Democracy Inside: Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places (Oxford, in press); Rebuilding Public Institutions Together: Professionals and Citizens in a Participatory Democracy (Cornell, 2017); Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury (Oxford, 2012); Democratic Professionalism: Citizen Participation and the Reconstruction of Professional Ethics, Identity, and Practice (Penn State, 2008);and a co-editor of Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration (Oxford, 2016). His interviews with democratic innovators appear in Boston Review, The Good Society, Restorative Justice: an International Journal, and National Civic Review. He is a professor in the political science and philosophy departments at Bowling Green State University. Previous Next

Richard Rowland, Selen Ercan, David Killoren, and Lucy J Parry < Back Moral Disagreements: Philosophical and Practical Implications Investigator(s): Richard Rowland, Selen Ercan, David Killoren, and Lucy J Parry Funded by the Australian Catholic University, Project Team includes: Richard Rowland Selen Ercan David Killoren Lucy J Parry Project Description Widespread disagreement about moral issues is a salient feature of moral thought and discourse in contemporary pluralistic societies. This project explores the metaphysical, epistemological, and practical implications of moral disagreement and whether deep and fundamental moral disagreements can be overcome. The project involves the world’s first deliberative poll on a fundamental moral issue. In deliberative polls a large number – at least 200 – people with different views on political and policy issues come together to deliberate about a particular policy issue (such as, for instance, whether we should focus on responses to crime other than imprisonment). Participants are given information about the issue in question that has been rigorously vetted to ensure its neutrality. They deliberate with one another in small and larger groups about the issue in question for 1-2 days. Before the deliberation participants are anonymously polled about the issue that they will subsequently deliberate about. They are then anonymously polled again after the deliberation. Over 70 deliberative polls have been conducted on different policy issues in 24 different countries. And significantly more convergence in the relevant views of participants has been found after the two days of deliberation than before the two days of deliberation. Although over 70 deliberative polls have been conducted there has yet to be one on fundamental moral issues; all the polls thus far have concerned issues of policy and the probable consequences of various policies rather than the moral desirability, or rightness or wrongness of particular outcomes. In collaboration with members of Stanford University’s Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Canberra University’s Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance this project will conduct the first deliberative polls on fundamental moral issues. These polls will shed light on whether deliberation can help to overcome deep moral disagreement.

< Back Deliberation in schools Pierrick Chalaye, University of Canberra / Kei Nishiyama, University of Canberra / Wendy Russell, Double Arrow Consulting Tue 2 April 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In 2018, we conducted a pilot Deliberation in Schools project in two ACT public schools (Ainslie Primary School year 5 and Hawker College year 11), partially funded by the International Association for Public Participation Australasia. Working with teachers and school principals, we facilitated a series of deliberative sessions with students. Through the program, we investigated how students deliberate, understand and practice democracy, and what sorts of curriculum design are needed to cultivate democratic competencies. In this presentation, we will show some tentative findings of our pilot, with a specific focus on the role of facilitator in classroom deliberation. While the role of facilitator in deliberative mini-publics has gradually received attention from scholars and practitioners alike, little is known about how to facilitate deliberation in the classroom. In this presentation, we will show how our pilot partially responds to two key questions: "How can a facilitator ensure the epistemic and inclusive quality of deliberation in the classroom?" "How can this deliberative work address power imbalances between facilitators/teachers and students?" Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Tackling far-right extremism: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Jordan McSwiney, gets among the experts 17 May 2023 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. Asked what he is most looking forward to during the fellowship, Jordan said that he is keen to learn more about the aftermath of the July 2011 attacks and its impact on Norwegian society. His residency at the centre may also provide insights into the indicators of democratic resilience for other communities around the world and will be a great opportunity to build ties that could strengthen our centre’s own Democratic Resilience Project.

< Back Policy making and democratic responsiveness: The explanatory potential of values Linda Botterill, University of Canberra Tue 14 July 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Building 24, University of Canberra / Virtual Seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel. Abstract This presentation will consider policy as the output of the democratic process, the endpoint of Powell’s “chain of democratic responsiveness”. Understanding fully how citizens’ preferences are reflected in policy outcomes requires the effective integration of politics into models of the policy process. One way to do this is to consider policy and politics through a values lens. I will argue that values constitute the common thread that connects all the stages of the chain of responsiveness, with each choice from citizens’ voting to policy decisions involving the prioritisation of one value or set of values over others. Drawing on the work of Shalom Schwartz, I will consider what is meant by the term ‘values’ and then discuss how they are evident in every stage of the democratic process. I will conclude with a few observations about what this approach means for policy studies. About the speaker Linda Botterill is Professor in Australian Politics and Head of the Canberra School of Politics, Economics & Society. She is a political scientist working in the areas of Australian politics, and public policy theory. The focus of her current work is the role of values in politics and policy, and she has also published extensively on Australian rural policy and politics. Prior to commencing her academic career, Professor Botterill worked as a policy practitioner – including over a decade in the APS, as an adviser to two Ministers for Primary Industries and Energy in the Keating government, and as senior policy adviser in two industry associations. She was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2015. Previous Next

Mirca Madianou, Nicole Curato, Jonathan Corpus Ong and Jayeel Cornelio < Back Technologies of Humanitarianism: An Ethnographic Assessment of Communication Environments in Disaster Recovery and Humanitarian Intervention Investigator(s): Mirca Madianou, Nicole Curato, Jonathan Corpus Ong and Jayeel Cornelio Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council Urgency Grant (UK).

< Back People haven't had enough of experts: Technocratic attitudes among citizens in nine European countries Daniele Caramani, University of Zurich Tue 9 June 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Abstract Democratic theory postulates that technocracy and populism mount a twofold challenge to representative democracy and parties, while also standing at odds with each other in the vision of representation they advocate. Can these relationships be observed empirically at the level of citizen preferences and what does this mean for alternative forms of representation? The talk presents results from an investigation of technocratic attitudes among citizens in nine EU member states. Attitudes follow three dimensions – Expertise, Elitism, Anti-politics Using latent class analysis, empirical data allows to identify groups of citizens that follow a technocratic, populist and party-democratic profiles. Results show that technocratic attitudes are pervasive and can be meaningfully distinguished from populist attitudes, though important overlaps remain. The analysis also points to differences in demographics and political attitudes among citizen profiles that are relevant to political behaviour. This highlights the role that citizens’ increasing demands for expertise play in driving preferences for alternative types of governance in an increasing complex and inter-connected global society. About the speaker Daniele Caramani has joined the University of Zurich in 2014. He grew up in Milan and Paris and studied political science at the University of Geneva where he has also worked as teaching assistant. He holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute, Florence, where he subsequently has been Vincent Wright Fellow (Robert Schuman Centre). He has been an assistant professor at the University of Florence, has spent four years at the University of Mannheim (MZES) as a researcher, and has been senior lecturer/reader at the University of Birmingham. From 2006 to 2014 he has been a professor at the University of St. Gallen. In 2019 and 2020 he is visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, Canberra. In the past, he has held fellowships at the EUI, Florence, at Nuffield College, Oxford, and at the Rokkan Centre in Bergen. He is the author of Elections in Western Europe since 1815: Electoral Results by Constituencies (Palgrave 2000, with CD-ROM), The Nationalization of Politics (Cambridge University Press 2004) for which he has been awarded UNESCO's "Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences", and The Europeanization of Politics (Cambridge University Press 2015). He has authored Introduction to the Comparative Method with Boolean Algebra (Sage, "Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences" 2009), which has been translated into Chinese and Farsi, and edits the textbook Comparative Politics (Oxford University Press 2017, fourth edition, translated into Italian and Croatian). He regularly publishes articles in scientific journals. Daniele Caramani is Co-Director of the Constituency-Level Elections Archive which has received the APSA "Dataset Award" in 2012. He is Director of the Doctoral Programme "Democracy Studies". His research and teaching profile is broadly comparative. It has a strong historical dimension with time series reaching back to the first phases of democratic transition, state building, and industrialization up to the present day. Empirical research is based on comparative and quantitative-statistical methods, and has produced documented datasets and archives which are available to the academic community. It includes work on elections and representation, electoral systems and electoral behaviour, parties and party systems, democratization, state formation and nation-building, methodology, European integration, globalization, regionalism and nationalism, and political geography. His main contribution has been in the field of the theory of the nationalization and Europeanization of politics. Currently, he works on extending that research with a third monograph on the "globalization" of politics. Further projects include work on technocracy, populism, left-right in global perspective and global voting rights. Previous Next

< Back Friedel Marquardt Research Assistant About Friedel is a Research Assistant in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance for the global research project Participedia’s Participatory Governance Cluster. She is also a PhD student at the University of Canberra, in the School of Politics, Economics and Society in the Business, Government and Law faculty.  Dissertation Friedel’s PhD thesis considers whether social media is a viable platform for marginalised groups to engage with dominant narratives. She is specifically looking into the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia, which had a strong focus on First Nations deaths in custody, to try to understand if and to what extent this takes place. PhD Supervisors Mary Walsh (primary supervisor)  Selen Ercan (secondary supervisor)  Hans Asenbaum (secondary supervisor)  Administration Cluster Coordinator, Participedia, 2021-present Scholarships and Prizes Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship (2021-2023), University of Canberra University Medal (2019), University of Canberra Key Publications Gagnon, J.P., Asenbaum, H., Fleuβ, D., Bassu, S., Guasti, P., Dean, R., Chalaye, P., Alnemr, N., Marquardt, F. & Weiss, A. (2021) The Marginalized Democracies of the World. Democratic Theory, 8(2), 1-18.  https://doi.org/10.3167/dt.2021.080201   Conference Presentations The Politics of Narrative in Media, Political Organisation and Participation (POP) APSA Standing Group Annual Workshop, 6-7 December 2022, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA.  Australian Political Studies Association Annual Conference, 26-28 September 2022, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT. The Politics of Narrative in Media, Political Organisation and Participation (POP) APSA Standing Group Annual Workshop, 16-17 February 2022, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD.  “First Nations in Contemporary Australia: Present, but Heard?”, Australian Political Studies Association Annual Conference, 20-22 September 2021, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, (online due to COVID restrictions). Teaching Tutor, Introduction to Politics and Government, 2022 – present Tutor and guest lecturer, Introduction to Public Policy, 2021 - present  Public Engagement Levin, M., Parry, L., & Marquardt, F. (2022) ‘Best-Interests Decision Making,’ Just Participation Participedia Podcast, 16 August. Marquardt, F. (2022) ‘People’s participation in process design,’ in Risks and lessons from the deliberative wave. Edited by N. Curato. Deliberative Democracy Digest. 2 May.  Marquardt, F. (2022) Who determines the practical meanings of democracy?. ECPR The Loop. 7 April.  Marquardt, F. (2022) Who Controls the Narrative? The Power of Social Media, Murra Magazine. February. Marquardt, F. and Ercan, S.A. (2022) Deliberative Integrity Indicators: Some Insights from Participedia. Research Note #3 , Deliberative Integrity Project. January. 

< Back COMPARING DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS Matt Ryan, University of Southampton Tue 5 June 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Systematic comparisons of democratic institutions, devices, and processes provide a unique quality of knowledge that helps us learn how to improve governance in democracies. The research agenda inspired by the deliberative turn in democratic theory has moved in an increasingly empirical direction, with large scale data-collection an ever more prominent feature of research in the subfield of democratic innovations. Nevertheless, systematic comparisons of more than a handful of cases are still rare. Comparing a large number of democratic innovations presents conceptual challenges and sampling and publication biases have often reinforced a scholarly focus on ‘best practices’ at the expense of learning from failure and variation. In this presentation I report the results of systematic comparisons of more than a handful of cases of democratic innovation by systematically cumulating existing research. In particular I highlight different combinations of conditions that explain citizen control of decision-making worldwide. I show that even though comparing a large number of cases presents methodological and conceptual challenges, engagement with the task is a requirement if our explanatory theories are to be improved. About the speaker Dr Matt Ryan is Lecturer in Governance and Public Policy at the University of Southampton. His research focuses on democratic innovation and participation in politics, the policymaking process, and social science research methods. His most recent publications appear in European Journal of Political Research, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Local Government Studies, Journal of Public Deliberation and PS: Political Science and Politics. Previous Next

< Back Creative publics: Deliberation in Canada and the story of MASS LBP Peter MacLeod, Principal, MASS LBP Wed 9 May 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Since its founding in 2007, MASS LBP has led some of Canada's most original and ambitious efforts to engage citizens in tackling tough policy choices. From privacy legislation to community planning to health policy, MASS has conducted more than 35 major reference panels, citizens’ assemblies and commissions involving more than 1500 Canadians, and reaching more than 300,000 households. Today, MASS is an internationally recognised leader in the design and delivery of deliberative processes for government. About the speaker Peter MacLeod is the founder and principal of MASS LBP, and one of Canada's leading experts in public engagement and deliberative democracy. He is a former researcher at Britain's Demos think tank, and a long-time friend to Denmark's Kaospilots, a school for business design and social innovation. He writes and speaks frequently about the citizen's experience of the state, the importance of public imagination, and the future of responsible government. He currently serves on the board of Tides Canada, a national environmental charity, and chairs Toronto's Wellesley Institute, a leading think tank dedicated to improving health equity and the social determinants of health. He also lectures in the politics and governance department at Ryerson University. Previous Next

Research Fellow < Back Hedda Ransan-Cooper Research Fellow About Hedda Ransan-Cooper's research interests include the human dimensions of global environmental change, the theory and practice of sustainable development and the intersections between human mobility and climate change.

< Back Beyond residual realisms: Four paths for remaking participation with science and democracy Matthew Kearnes, University of New South Wales Tue 12 December 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In light of the contestation of the purposes and objectives of contemporary techno-political decision-making, and the emergence of a more questioning and ambivalent response to assertions of authoritative expertise, attempts to generate socially resilient political settlements across an array of policy domains have increasingly called upon the logics of ‘democratic participation’. In this context, contemporary scientific and environmental policy is increasingly characterised by institutional commitments to fostering public engagement and participation with science, together with greater transparency in the deployment of scientific expertise in decision-making. However, despite notable successes, such developments have often struggled to enhance public trust and build more socially responsive and responsible science and technology. In this paper, we argue a central reason for this is that mainstream approaches to public engagement harbour ‘residual realist’ assumptions about participation and the public. Recent studies in ‘science and technology studies’ (STS) offer an alternative way of seeing participation as co-produced, relational and emergent. In this paper, we build on these approaches by setting out a framework comprising of four interrelating paths and associated criteria for remaking public participation with science and democracy in more experimental, reflexive, anticipatory, and responsible ways. This comprises moves to: forge reflexive participatory practices that attend to their framing, emergence, uncertainties, and effects; ecologise participation through attending to the interrelations between diverse public engagements; catalyse practices of anticipatory reflection to bring about responsible democratic innovations; and reconstitute participation as constitutive of (not separate from) systems of science and democracy. We close by offering some reflections on the ways in which these approaches might be taken up in both analytically and normatively inspired work and scholarship. About the speaker Matthew Kearnes is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and member of the of Environmental Humanities Group at the School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales. Before arriving at UNSW he held post-doctoral positions at the Department of Geography at the Open University and the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change/Department of Sociology at Lancaster University. Most recently he held a Research Councils UK Fellowship at the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience/Department of Geography, Durham University. Matthew's research is situated between the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), human geography and contemporary social theory. His current work is focused on the social and political dimensions of technological and environmental change, including ongoing work on the development of negative emission strategies and soil carbon sequestration. He has published widely on the ways in which the development of novel and emerging technologies is entangled with profound social, ethical and normative questions. Matthew serves on the editorial board Science, Technology and Society (Sage) and on the advisory panel for Science as Culture (Taylor & Francis). For more information about Matthew’s research please visit https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-matthew-benjamin-kearnes and at @mbkearnes Previous Next

< Back Overdoing democracy: The problem of political polarization Tue 18 August 2020 Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel. Abstract Democracy is such an important social good that it seems natural to think that more is always better. However, we also recognize that it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. In this talk, Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt University) draws from current findings regarding political polarization to argue that, as important a social good as democracy is, it is nonetheless possible for citizens to overdo it. Today, our everyday activities are increasingly fused with our political profiles: commercial spaces, workplaces, professions, schools, churches, sports teams, and even public parks now tend to embody a particular political valence. When politics is permitted to saturate our social environments, we impair the capacities we need in order to enact democracy well. In a slogan, when we overdo democracy in this way, we undermine it. The solution is to build venues and activities where people can engage in cooperative activities together in which their political identities are neither bolstered nor suppressed, but simply beside the point. If we want to do democracy well, we need to put politics in its right place. About the speaker Robert Talisse is a political philosopher focusing on democracy and civic ethics. He has authored over a dozen academic books and more than 100 peer-reviewed articles. In addition, Talisse hosts the podcast Why We Argue, and co-hosts the podcast New Books in Philosophy. Talisse is also a regular contributor to various public philosophy venues such as Aeon, Scientific American Mind, 3 Quarks Daily, 3AM Magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, Free Inquiry, Think, and Institute for Arts and Ideas magazine. Previous Next

< Back Li-Chia Lo Associate About Li-Chia Lo has adopted the interpretivist approach to investigate the cross-cultural transformation of political ideas and he is curious about how introducing new ideas can trigger political participation and promote political communication. His broader areas of interest include critical theory, democratic theory, China studies, and Taiwan studies.

Nicole Curato < Back Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Crisis Investigator(s): Nicole Curato We are the institutional lead for research and evaluation of the world’s first global assembly on the climate and ecological crisis. Mohammad Abdul-Hwas, Wendy Conway-Lamb and Nicole Curato are part of this pioneering research team.  2021 Report

< Back Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems Nicole Curato, Marit Hammond and John B. Min 2019 , Palgrave Summary Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. Read more Previous Next

< Back Why am I engaged? Walden Bello, State University of New York in Binghamton Tue 26 November 2019 11:00am – 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Reflecting on his trajectory as an academic and an activist, the speaker will trace his personal evolution as an activist/academic, focusing on the key junctures in this process, and discuss the tension between theory and action, the relationship between methodology and the process of uncovering the real dynamics of power, and the often tragic Orwellian tension between being an intellectual and being a member of a political organization. About the speaker Walden Bello is a Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York in Binghamton. He is the author of more than 20 books including Deglobalization: Ideas for a New World Economy, Capitalism's Last Stand: Deglobalization in the Age of Austerity, and, most recently, Counterrevolutions: The Global Rise of the Far Right and Paper Dragons: China and the Next Crash. The International Studies Association named him the Most Outstanding Public Scholar in 2008. Previous Next

< Back Kimmo Gronlund Associate About Kimmo Grönlund is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Social Science Research Institute at Åbo Akademi University. He is also Director of The Future of Democracy – a Center of Excellence in public opinion research.

< Back Unveiling the mandate Jensen Sass, University of Canberra Tue 3 April 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Elections are justified in light of two competing ends. On the accountability view, elections function retrospectively by enabling voters to 'kick the bastards out'. On the mandate view, elections operate prospectively by enabling voters to register their support for a suite of policies. The dual character of elections presents democrats with a dilemma. As currently designed, electoral processes do not reveal the intentions of the electorate. In consequence, they do not reveal whether voters intended to remove a government, or program a new one. A government elected on a wave of protest can claim a strong mandate and pursue legislation that enjoys little popular support. Voters cannot hold such a government accountable until the next election and, even if they remove the incumbents, this perverse cycle can play out again. Elections can only foster accountability in light of a mandate, and these presuppose the existence of (and knowledge about) stable and well-structured voter intentions. This dilemma is basic to all electoral processes but has received little serious attention from normative political theorists or scholars of institutional design. In this paper we propose a minimal reform of electoral processes to overcome this problem, one that would clarify voter intentions. This would allow us to specify the scope of a government's mandate, as well as enabling elections to function more efficiently as accountability mechanisms. The overarching aim of the paper is to better align our existing political institutions with normative democratic theories and hence defend representative democracy against its recent detractors. About the speaker Jensen Sass is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His work at the Centre examines the way social norms and cultural meanings shape the character of deliberation within different contexts. In addition to his work on deliberation, Jensen is undertaking a long-term project on the history of the Monsanto Company and its role in the development of agricultural biotechnology. Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back UC Postdoctoral Fellow wins 2022 Rising Star Award from leading European political science association 6 Feb 2023 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. This award is presented annually, through the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). ECPR, of which the University of Canberra is a member institution, is the leading European academic association with a mission to advance political science, Recipients of the award are given the opportunity to develop their networks and skills in the field of politics and international relations. “For me, the award shows that critical voices are important, are heard and are appreciated in our society – I've always tried to make a case for inclusion and for sensitivity to our identities,” Dr Asenbaum said. Read more