Search Results

< Back Overcoming fundamental moral disagreement Richard Rowland, Australian Catholic University Tue 20 June 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Fundamental moral disagreements are moral disagreements that do not derive from disagreements about empirical or non-moral facts. For instance, some hold that torture is always in every instance morally wrong even if the consequences of torturing are better than the consequences of not torturing; others hold that sometimes, when the expected consequences of torturing are good enough (and the expected consequences of not-torturing are bad enough), it can be morally permissible to torture. This disagreement about the morality of torture is a fundamental moral disagreement. Firstly, I will briefly explain how if fundamental moral disagreement persisted in idealized conditions this would have both first-order ethical implications and implications for the nature of morality. Secondly, I will explain how all the research in the literature that purports to give us reasons to believe that there would or would not be fundamental moral disagreement in idealized conditions in fact gives us no reason to believe anything about fundamental moral disagreement in idealized conditions. Thirdly, I will sketch how a deliberative poll and Q-study that I will be conducting with Selen Ercan, David Killoren, and Lucy Parry may shed light on the extant of fundamental moral disagreement that would persist in idealized conditions and whether fundamental moral disagreements differ from other moral and political disagreements. About the speaker Richard Rowland is a permanent research fellow in moral philosophy at the Australian Catholic University. He works on ethics and metaethics, specifically on the nature of normativity and value, and on moral disagreement. He has published work in journals including Ethics, Noûs, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophical Quarterly. Previous Next

< Back Julien VryDagh Associate About Julien Vrydagh researches the policy impact of mini-publics in Belgium. He conducts case studies to trace the policy influence of mini-publics, and compares Belgian mini-publics with a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis in order to understand the conditions under which they succeed or not in exerting an influence.

< Back Albert Dzur Associate About Albert W. Dzur is a democratic theorist interested in citizen deliberation and power-sharing in criminal justice, education, and public administration. He is the co-editor of Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration (Oxford, 2016).

< Back Jonathan Kuyper Associate and Former PhD Student About Jonathan Kuyper is a political theorist and international relations scholar working mainly with democratic theory, with a special focus on deliberative democracy. He is interested in how democratic theory can be employed to understand changes in domestic politics brought about by globalization, as well as offers ways to respond to these changes.

< Back Benjamin Lyons Associate About Ben Lyons' research focuses on the intersections of politics, science, and communication technology. He has published work examining the roles that group affiliations and media use play in distorting policy debates. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah.

Former PhD student < Back Carolyn Hendriks Former PhD student About Carolyn Hendriks' 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, policy evaluation, network governance and environmental politics and is an Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.

< Back Madeleine Egan PhD Candidate About Madeleine is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her research focusses on informal participation in constitution-making. Prior to beginning graduate studies, Madeleine worked in community engagement for local government and non-profit organisations, as well as in communications, community organising and campaigns for environmental and social justice. Dissertation Madeleine’s PhD research explores mass democracy in deliberative constitution-making. Recent constituent processes in Chile (2019 - ) and Iceland ( 2008 - ) reflect an international trend towards more participatory constitution-making. For deliberative democratic theory, these cases raise long-standing questions about the relationship between discursive law-making and mass democracy—realistically, how can all subjects be authors of the law? Madeleine’s research combines normative theory with empirical research, to investigate how deliberation in the public sphere shapes constitution-making in practice. Conference Presentations Social movements as catalysts for deliberative constitution-making, Political Studies Association (PSA) Annual Conference. March 29, 2020. Virtual Conference. Constitution-making and the role of informal participation in the public sphere, Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) Annual Conference. November 30, 2023. Sydney. PhD supervisors John Dryzek (Primary Supervisor) Selen Ercan (Secondary Supervisor) Ron Levy (Advisor) Teaching Tutor, Political and Social Theory. 2020. Tutor, Co-Design and Deliberative Engagement. 2024. Administration Co-Editor, Working Paper Series, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance Scholarships and Prizes Deliberative Democracy Scholarship, University of Canberra, 2020 Percival Serle Prize, University of Melbourne, 2017 Dwight Final Examination Prize, University of Melbourne, 2017

< Back Digging deeper: The role of emotions in anti-coal seam gas mobilization Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Sonya Duus & Selen Ercan, University of Canberra Tue 23 May 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In many countries, the expansion of coal seam gas (CSG) exploration and development has been met with grassroots resistance; the scale and depth of which has surprised even movement organizers. An often remarked feature of the movement’s success is the teaming up of farmers and environmental organizers, historically at odds with one another on other environmental issues. In this paper, we explore the role of emotions in building alliances, and mobilizing anti-CSG individuals and groups in Australia, especially the site of a proposed coal seam gas field in Narrabri, in northwest NSW. Using Margaret Wetherell’s affective-discourses approach and Charles Tilly’s concept of repertoires of contention as our conceptual springboard, we analyse interviews with various anti-CSG movement participants. The paper argues that affective practices play a significant role in explaining how the movement has sustained mobilization against CSG despite differences between movement participants. Emotions allow a new repertoire of contention that combines everyday practices associated with ‘doing’ community with confrontational direct action tactics favoured by several environmental groups. We discuss the implications of this development for the social movements literature in general and for the anti-CSG mobilization in Australia. This paper is part of a research project on 'Realising Democracy Amid Communicative Plenty: A Deliberative Systems Approach' funded by the Australian Research Council About the speakers Hedda Ransan-Cooper is a research fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance located at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra. Her research interests include the social dimension of energy change and the nexus between environmental change and human mobility. Her recent publications appeared in Global Environmental Change and Environmental Sociology. Sonya Duus is a research fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance located at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra. Sonya's research has focussed on explaning current fossil fuel dilemmas from a broad and historical perspective. She has published papers in Environmental Politics and Rural Society. Selen Ercan is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance located at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra. She works in the area of deliberative democracy focusing particularly on the capacity of this approach in addressing irreconcilable value conflicts. Her recent publications appeared in International Political Science Review, Policy and Politics, Environmental Politics and Critical Policy Studies. Previous Next

< Back Alexander Geisler Associate About Alexander Geisler's research interests are in the fields of deliberative democracy, political behaviour, the theory and practice of democratic innovations, and social cognition.

< Back A humble ethos for democracy Christopher Hobson, Waseda University Tue 1 March 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In the quarter of a century since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the confidence surrounding democracy has been replaced with growing concerns about whether it is now in crisis. What is needed is an approach to democracy that avoids both the excessive optimism of the 1990s and the more corrosive pessimism that has emerged in recent years. Responding to this situation, this paper considers the old idea of humility, which has moved from virtue to vice to now seeming irrelevance. This may seem like a strange alternative to explore at a time when democracy is facing a growing array of serious challenges, especially given that humility has often been associated with self-abasement or accepting a lower position than one is due. Certainly such passivity does not cohere well with democracy, but if humility is understood in terms of an awareness of one’s limits and an acknowledgement of what has yet to be achieved, it has the potential to offer a powerful way of approaching democratic government. This paper explores the different meanings the idea has taken, and considers what a humble ethos for democracy might mean. It is suggested that humility entails reflection on one’s own standing, but this is done in reference to others. In this sense, there is a social dimension to humility, which can have productive consequences for democracy. In developing this approach, the paper will also consider recent arguments by Aikin and Clanton (2010) and Kyle Scott (2014) that humility plays a valuable role in facilitating deliberation. If this is indeed the case, humility may be an idea that deserves greater attention by deliberative democrats. About the speaker Christopher Hobson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University (Japan). He has previously held positions at the United Nations University and Aberystwyth University, and has a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the Australian National University. His work lies at the intersection between democracy and international politics. He is the author of The Rise of Democracy: Revolution, War and Transformations in International Politics since 1776 (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), and has co-edited three books including The Conceptual Politics of Democracy Promotion (Routledge 2011). For more information, visit his website: http://christopherhobson.net or check his Twitter feed: @hobson_c Previous Next

< Back Simon Niemeyer Professor About Simon Niemeyer is co-founder of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Simon’s research covers the broad field of deliberative democracy, with a focus on the use of empirical research to inform its theoretical foundations and understand how they translate into practical democratic innovations. So far, Simon has contributed to the development of several pathbreaking concepts in the field, such as metaconsensus and discursive representation (both with John Dryzek) as well as developing innovative methods for the analysis of deliberation. His more recent work has involved conceptualising, measuring, and analysing deliberative reasoning. This work, which ties together previous work on measuring deliberative transformation and theorising of deliberative metaconsensus, has implications for minipublic design, as well broader implications for the understanding the ethics of epistemology, the nature and role of deliberative capacity, distributed reasoning in deliberative systems and mechanisms for supporting deliberative reasoning. Much of his work has focussed on deliberative democracy and environmental issues, including climate change, but also covers a broad range of topics including technological development, medical ethics, energy futures, immigration, and parliamentary reform. Niemeyer completed his PhD at the Australian National University in 2002, which followed undergraduate studies in ecology, economics, and environmental policy (Griffith University). Since graduating, he has acted as chief investigator on 18 research projects, including nine Australian Research Council Awards and an ARC Future Fellowship. As well as ANU and University of Canberra, he has held research positions at the Uppsala University, University of Birmingham, Cambridge University and CSIRO. He has also held visiting positions and numerous universities including University of Oxford (Nuffield College), Åbo Akademi, University of British Columbia, University of Bern and University of Northern Arizona. Key Publications Niemeyer, S. J. and F. Veri (Forthcoming). Deliberative Reasoning Index. Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy . S. A. Ercan, H. Asenbaum, N. Curato and R.F. Mendonca. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Niemeyer, S. J. and J. Jennstål (2018). From Minipublics to Deliberative Democracy: Scaling Up Deliberativeness and Subverting Political Manipulation. Handbook of Deliberative Democracy . A. Bächtiger, J. S. Dryzek, M. E. Warren and J. J. Mansbridge. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Niemeyer, S. J. (2011). The Emancipatory Effect of Deliberation: Empirical Lessons from Mini-Publics . Politics & Society 39(1): 103–140. Dryzek, J. S. and S. J. Niemeyer (2008). Discursive Representation . American Political Science Review 102(4): 481–494 Dryzek, J. S., & Niemeyer, S. J. (2006). Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals . American Journal of Political Science , 50(3): 634–649. Full list of publications available in GoogleScholar . Research Grants Co-investigator (with PerOla Öberg). “Expert government agencies’ contribution to public deliberation: balancing the need for expertise with political equality”, Riksbanken (Sweden), SEK5,700,000 , 2021-2023 Chief Investigator (with Nicole Curato, Selen Ercan, John Dryzek and Nick Vlahos). Monitoring Deliberative Integrity in Australia. Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative. AU$202,156. 2021-2023 Chief Investigator (with John Dryzek, Dianne Nicol, Nicole Curato, Antoine Vergner). “Global Citizen Deliberation: Analysing a Deliberative Documentary for a Citizens Assembly on Genome Editing”. ARC Linkage, $450,000, 2020-2023. Chief Investigator (with Dianne Nicol, Nicole Curato, John Dryzek). “Genome editing: formulating an Australian community response”. Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, Medical Research Future Fund —Genomics Health Futures Mission, $432,015. 2020-2022. Lead Investigator (with CIs Nicole Curato, John Dryzek, Andre Bachtiger. “A Metastudy of micropolitical deliberation”, ARC Discovery Project, $526,411. 2018-2020. Co-investigator (with Jane Suiter and David Farrel). Analysis of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality,€45,000, 2020. Co-investigator (with Andre Bächtiger and S. Marien German Research Council. What citizens want from deliberative forms of participation: mapping legitimacy perceptions with an online survey and a preference experiment. (The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, €150,000. 2020-2022. Lead Investigator (with Julia Jennstål), “The Deliberative Person: How, When and Where to Citizens Deliberate” Swedish Research Council Research Grant, SEK 5,800,000 [Approx AU $1million] 2014-2017. Lead Investigator, ARC Future Fellowship “Deliberative Democracy and Climate Change: Building the Foundations of an Adaptive System”. ARC, AU$629,090. 2013-2016. Lead Investigator (with John Dryzek, David Schlosberg, Kersty Hobson, Robert Goodin, Andre Bachtiger, Maija Setala).ARC Discovery Grant DP120103976 ,“Deliberative Democracy in the Public Sphere: Achieving Deliberative Outcomes in mass publics”. AU$320,357. 2012-2014. Chief Investigator (with David Schlosberg). “ Rethinking Climate Justice in an Age of Adaptation: Capabilities, Loca Variation, and Public Deliberation”. ARC Discovery Grant DP120104797, AU$250,000. 2012-2014. Lead Investigator (with Will Steffen and Kersty Hobson). “Social Adaptation to Climate Change in the Australian Public Sphere: A Comparison of Individual and Group Deliberative Responses to Scenarios of Future Climate Change” ARC Discovery Grant DP0879092AU$378,500, 2008-2010. Chief Investigator (with John Dryzek, Lyn Carson (USyd), Janette HartzKarp (Murdoch), Ian Marsh (USyd) and Luca Belgiorno-Nettis (newDemocracy), “Creating an Analysing a Citizens’ Parliament: Exploring the Public’s Deliberative Capacity”). ARC Linkage Grant LP0882714, AU$709,575, 2008-2010. Chief Investigator (with John Dryzek), “The Micropolitics of Deliberation”. ARC Discovery Grant DP0558573, AU$365,000. 2005-2007. Lead Investigator (with Anna Littleboy), “Societal uptake of alternative energy futures”, CSIRO Energy Flagship Programme AU$400,000. 2004-2005. Chief Investigator (with Judith Petts, Kersty Hobson, Glenn McGregor). “Predicting thresholds of social behavioural responses to rapid climate change”. Economic and Social Research Council (UK). Environment and New Behaviour Opportunities Programme, £32,748. 2003-2004. Lead Investigator (with Mick Common and Russell Blamey). “Citizens’ Juries and Environmental Valuation” AU$150,000, Land and Water Australia. Social and Institutional Research Program. 1999-2002. Recipient. Land and Water Scholar. Industry Scholarship award for Doctoral Studies at the School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. AU$75,000. 1999-2002. PhD Students Nardine Almer (Primary Supervisor) Nicole Moore (Secondary Supervisor) Tatjana Zhdanova (Secondary Supervisor) Andrea Felicetti (Secondary Supervisor) Michael Rollens (Secondary Supervisor) Alex Lo (Secondary Supervisor) Administration Director, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, 2021-2022 Member, Excellence in Research committee, University of Canberra, 2021-2022. Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Business, Government and Law, 2018-2020. Member, University Research Committee, University of Canberra, 2019-2020 Coordinator, ARC Research Proposals, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, 2017-2018 Member, College of Arts and Social Sciences eResearch Committee, 2011-2012. Member, College of Arts and Social Sciences IT Strategy Committee, 2009-2010 Steering Group member, ANU Climate Initiative, 2007–2009 President, ANU Postgraduate and Research Student Association, 1999 Member of University Council, The Australian National University, 1999 Steering Committee Member, ECPR Standing Group, Democratic Innovations, 2011- 2015 Public Engagement Curato, Nicole, and Simon J. Niemeyer. (2020). Why we need a global citizens’ assembly on gene editing . The Conversation . Niemeyer, S. and Hausseger, V (2018). There are always going to be problems in trying something new. But try we should . Canberra Times/Sydney Morning Herald . Canberra. Niemeyer, S. J. (2017). Transforming ACT democracy one citizens' jury at a time. The Canberra Times . Niemeyer, Simon J. (2017). Deliberative democracy and citizens juries. Canberra Conversations , 4 May. Niemeyer, S. J. (2010). A novel idea on climate change: ask the people . The Conversation . Niemeyer, S. J. (2010). Helping unlikely sceptics see that climate change is real . The Age .

< Back Luisa Batalha Associate About Luisa Batalha's work examines themes related to social identity and deliberative democracy, in addition to research on multiculturalism and prejudice, and the psychology of climate change. Luisa works at the Department of Psychology at the ANU and has conducted quantitative analysis on the Australian Citizens' Parliament.

< Back Franziska Maier Associate About Franziska Maier is a PhD student at the University of Stuttgart working on citizenship concepts, and preference building and change through deliberation.

< Back Mara Hernandez Associate About Mara Hernandez pioneered the design and facilitation of multi-stakeholder dialogue and consensus-based coalition building in Mexico, on issues of public policy such as environmental management, human rights and public security.

< 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.

< Back DIGITAL PLATFORMS AND ISSUE POLARISATION: CITIZENS' DEBATES ON ABORTION, RACIAL QUOTAS AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IN BRAZIL FROM 2021-2019 The relationship between digital platforms and political polarisation has gained priority attention from scholars in the last two decades. About this event Digital platforms have become the main mediators of public debate: it is where citizens, social movements, activists, journalists, experts and political representatives discuss topics of common interest. The relationship between digital platforms and political polarisation has gained priority attention from scholars in the last two decades, but the empirical evidence is complex and ambiguous: while some research shows, for example, how specific characteristics of digital platforms lead to fragmentation of the public, other research shows that the use of platforms actually helps people to have contact and dialogue with diverse opinions. This is an important topic in Brazil today because in the last decade we began (returned?) to face a specific type of polarisation: one in which divergent groups face an absence of common ground and they see each other as deep-seated enemies. Two events mark this process: the huge protests of June 2013 (where protesters were located in different parts of the political spectrum), and the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 (where we saw the prominence of conservative groups, which were away from the public scene since the Military Dictatorship). Bolsonaro explicitly opposes dialogue between different positions, saying, for example, that "minorities must bow to the majority". In this presentation, I show how abortion, racial quotas and homosexual marriage were discussed by citizens on Facebook from 2012 to 2019. These are typically controversial topics, and they play a leading role in disputes between progressives and conservatives in Brazilian political conflicts over the last decade. Tariq Choucair is a PhD candidate in the Communication Graduation Program at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). Tariq studies reciprocity and polarisation in online debates on controversial issues. He has been a member of the Media and Public Sphere Research Group for 9 years, working with the group on research projects such as “Deliberative System and Social Conflicts” and “The potential of deliberation in divided societies”. Tariq's work is published in Political Studies, Political Research Exchange and E-COMPOS. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

Former PhD student < Back Melissa Lovell Former PhD student About Melissa Lovell is a writer, researcher and political scientist. She has a particular interest in the way that politicians and other political players frame policy problems and possibilities. Her research chiefly focuses on Australian Aboriginal Affairs governance and she is currently employed as a Research Officer at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies (NCIS), Australian National University.

< Back Olivia Mendoza PhD Candidate About Olivia Mendoza is a migrant Filipina PhD candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in Canberra, Australia, on unceded Ngunnawal land. She studies emotions and deliberation from a critical feminist and decolonial lens. Before moving to Australia, she was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Department of History and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Baguio. I taught courses on Development Ethics, Moral Philosophy, and Ancient and Medieval Philosophy among others. For her work, she was awarded the One UP Faculty Grant in Philosophy for Outstanding Teaching and Public Service, the UP International Publication Award, and Mateo Tupaz Grant. She is an active member of Women Doing Philosophy (WDP), a global feminist organization that aims to create and claim spaces that promote the scholarly, professional, and personal flourishing of Filipina philosophers. Dissertation Olivia's PhD thesis imagines a structure-oriented account of emancipatory democratic politics that stresses the importance of emotions and their role in relations of domination. It engages with the emotions and inequality literature in feminist and deliberative democratic theory and practice. PhD Supervisors Hans Asenbaum (primary supervisor) Adele Webb (secondary supervisor) John Dryzek (secondary supervisor) Scholarship and Prizes Deliberative Democracy PhD Scholarship (2023-2027), Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra. One UP Faculty Grant Award in Philosophy (Ethics) for Outstanding Teaching and Public Service in the University of the Philippines Baguio, College of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines Baguio (2022-2024). Mateo Tupaz Grant (2019-2022), University of the Philippines Baguio. Research Project: Reviewing Emotion Theories in light of Filipino Emotions. Key Publications Olivia S. Mendoza. 2024. “Emotions and Filipino Resilience” In Llanera, Tracy (ed). Resilience: The Brown Babe’s Burden. Routledge Book Series on the Post- CoViD World: Academics, Politics and Society. Liz Jackson, Nuraan Davids, Winston C. Thompson, Jessica Lussier, Nicholas C. Burbules, Kal Alston, Stephen Chatelier, Krissah Marga B. Taganas, Olivia S. Mendoza, Jason Lin Cong, Addyson Frattura & Anonymous and P. Taylor Webb. 2022. "Feeling like a philosopher of education: A collective response to Jackson’s ‘The smiling philosopher’." Educational Philosophy and Theory , DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2022.2063719. Conference Presentations Olivia S. Mendoza, “Emotional and Hermeneutic Labour: Feminist Philosophy Meets Deliberative Democracy." 11th Swiss Summer School in Democracy Studies and 7th Deliberative Democracy Summer School. University of Zurich, Switzerland. 2025. Olivia S. Mendoza. “Emotional Labour: A Feminist Agenda for Deliberative Democracy." Reimagining Democratic Politics in the Contemporary Symposium. Centre for Democratic Futures, University of Southampton, UK. 2025. Teaching Development Ethics (SDS 271, Master’s Course in Social and Development Studies), 2022 History of the Social Sciences (Soc Sci 100), 2021-2022 Ethics (Philo 171, for Philosophy Students), 2019-2022 Ethics and Moral Reasoning (Ethics 1, General Education Course), 2019-2022 Ancient Philosophy (Philosophy110) and Medieval Philosophy (Philosophy 111), 2014-2022. Public Service Member, Women Doing Philosophy. 2020-present.

< Back Harshith Ghanta Research Assistant About Harshith Ghanta is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy at the University of Canberra. He is currently pursuing a Master of Information Technology and Systems, specialising in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Originally from India, Harshith holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering and is a former national medalist in roller skating. He is passionate about community engagement and volunteers actively on campus. Harshith also founded the UC International Club to foster cultural exchange and inclusivity among students. He enjoys exploring diverse perspectives and approaching challenges with creativity and openness.

< Back Mapping and Measuring Deliberation: Towards a New Deliberative Quality André Bächtiger and John Parkinson 2019 , Oxford University Press Summary Deliberative democracy has challenged two widely-accepted nostrums about democratic politics: that people lack the capacities for effective self-government; and that democratic procedures are arbitrary and do not reflect popular will; indeed, that the idea of popular will is itself illusory. On the contrary, deliberative democrats have shown that people are capable of being sophisticated, creative problem solvers, given the right opportunities in the right kinds of democratic institutions. But deliberative empirical research has its own problems. In this book two leading deliberative scholars review decades of that research and reveal three important issues. First, the concept 'deliberation' has been inflated so much as to lose empirical bite; second, deliberation has been equated with entire processes of which it is just one feature; and third, such processes are confused with democracy in a deliberative mode more generally. In other words, studies frequently apply micro-level tools and concepts to make macro- and meso-level judgements, and vice versa. Instead, Bächtiger and Parkinson argue that deliberation must be understood as contingent, performative and distributed. They argue that deliberation needs to be disentangled from other communicative modes; that appropriate tools need to be deployed at the right level of analysis; and that scholars need to be clear about whether they are making additive judgements or summative ones. They then apply that understanding to set out a new agenda and new empirical tools for deliberative empirical scholarship at the micro, meso, and macro levels. Read more Previous Next