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< Back Elise Clark Honours Student About Elise is an honours student at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. As a Social Work graduate, her research focusses on how perspectives from Social Work can be applied to the paradigm of deliberative democracy. Prior to commencing her honours studies, Elise worked as a research assistant for Griffith University at the School of Government and International Relations and the Griffith Centre for Social Cultural Research. Elise has previously worked in community mental health and with young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Honours supervisors Prof Selen Ercan (Primary Supervisor) Dr Adele Webb (Secondary Supervisor)

Research Assistant < Back Elaine Dos Santos Research Assistant About Elaine Dos Santos worked as Research Assistant at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the Australian National University from 2010 to 2013.

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 The role of evidence, evidence-providers and the evidence-giving format in citizens' juries Jen Roberts, University of Strathclyde Tue 28 March 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Three citizens’ juries were run in different locations across Scotland in 2013/14, each with varying proximity to built and planned wind farms. One of the aims of this multi-disciplinary research project explored how deliberative processes, such as citizens’ juries, could be used to engage citizens and inform policy on public issues. One of the key lessons for designing, organizing and facilitating citizens’ juries that arose from the project concerned the provision of information. This includes issues surrounding witness selection, the format of evidence provision, the evidence itself, and how the witnesses were supported through the project. Although the juries were successful overall, it was felt that the jurors might have benefited from more support to make sense of the issues at hand and relevance to their task. To enhance the valuable outcomes from this unique project it is important to establish if, and how, these issues could be avoided or managed for future deliberative processes. Here, we revisit the process and consider how it could be improved so that contested evidence might be put forward in a way that is most useful (supportive, informative) to participants and most fair to the witnesses presenting the evidence. To inform our work, we draw on the experiences from other citizens’ juries that have been conducted on environmental or energy topics together with the learnings from the citizens’ juries on wind farms in Scotland project. We also interview the witnesses involved in the wind farms project to draw on their perspectives. These data are synthesised to examine the role of witnesses in presenting expert information, the processes of doing so, and how different roles or formats affect the experience of the witness and the audience. This enables us to recommend processes or approaches that will encourage a fair environment. About the speaker Jennifer Roberts is a pioneering young researcher linking energy systems with social and environmental risk. She uses her technical background in geoscience to address questions on the social and environmental impacts of energy developments, including CCS, unconventional gas, and onshore wind. Her work aims inform how a low-carbon energy system can be optimised and implemented in a way that is acceptable for the environment and society. On the strength of her genuinely interdisciplinary research she was awarded the Scottish Energy Researcher of the Year 2015 - Energy Infrastructure and Society category. Jen’s work is closely linked with Scotland’s Centre of Expertise on Climate Change (ClimateXChange), which works to provide independent advice, research and analysis on climate change & policy in Scotland, and she regularly contributes to policy briefs, public events, and training workshops. Jen was the Research Co-ordinator for a ClimateXChange research project that conducted citizens’ juries in three locations in Scotland on the topic of onshore wind farm development, to trial the deliberative method and also to find out the publics’ views on the issue. The research highlighted some of the complexities of involving experts in deliberative processes, which is a theme she continues to follow in her research. Previous Next

Research Assistant < Back Alessandra Pecci Research Assistant About Alessandra worked as Research Assistant at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the Australian National University from 2009 to 2011.

< Back When anger turns hip-hop: The deliberative capacity of teenagers' festive protests in Japan Kei Nishiyama, University of Canberra Tue 6 February 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract As one of several new forms of nonviolent activism, “festive” protests, or “protestival,” have received considerable attention from scholars and activists alike. By employing fun-centric and performance-based actions (e.g. singing hip-hop, writing songs, dancing, drawing street arts, or marching in a parade with colourful and humorous costumes), festive protestors form and sustain their movements, challenge dominant discourses, and drive social change in a unique manner. Importantly, festive protests can provide politically marginalized people, in this case teenagers, with a variety of opportunities to become involved in social change as they utilize teenager-friendly means of action. In this presentation, I will examine the democratic capacity of teenagers’ festive protests. In particular, I will seek to answer the question, what are the democratic purposes, contributions and meanings of teenagers’ festive protests? I will evaluate the democratic contribution of teenagers’ festive protests using the deliberative systems framework. This framework helps us to consider how the teenagers’ various communicative actions in social movements contribute to induce authentic, inclusive, and consequential deliberation across society thereby evaluating the democratic contribution of teenagers’ festive protests. This presentation will focus on the case of teenagers’ festive protests in Japan in the 2010s. I will contrast the case of the 2010s with protests in the 1960s. Both sets of protests are recognised as historically significant periods of teenagers’ protesting in Japan, motivated by the same issue (anti-war). However, the two sets of protests utilised radically different means (violent and festive), thereby leading to different consequences. The preliminary analysis of (a) repertoires of contention, (b) the type and content of speech actions, and (c) the political and social responses shall reveal the communicative and inclusive functions that teenagers’ festive protests potentially have in deliberative systems. About the speaker Kei Nishiyama is a Ph.D. student at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance.. His Ph.D. resarch - under the supervision of Prof John Dryzek and Dr Selen Ercan - investigates the way in which children can act as agents (rather than merely future citizens) of deliberative democracy. By employing the deliberative system appraoch as a theoretical framewrok, Kei considers pathways in which children's various deliberative actions (including deliberation in public space, participating in activist groups, deliberating in schools, deliberating with families or friends) can be incorporated in a wider deliberative system. Previosuly Kei studied philosophy of education at Rikkyo University (Japan) and gained a Bachelor (Arts in Education) and a Master Degree (Pedagogy). Kei is also a dialogue practitoner (6 years experience) of one deliberative practice in schools and society, called "philosophy for children." Kei is currently a part-time lecturer at the Department of Behavioral Science of Motivation, Correspondence College, Tokyo Future University, Japan. He lectures on politics of schooling, namely multiculturalism and identity problems in the context of school education. Previous Next

< Back A Q study in waiting: Three hunting discourses Lucy Parry, University of Sheffield Mon 16 March 2015 11:00am - 12:00pm Fishbowl, Building 24, University of Canberra Abstract Here I present some tentative findings from my pilot Q study which aims to map out the current discourses that exist around the hunting of wild mammals in the UK. I first provide an overview of Q methodology, before going on to outline how I approached the study. I will then present some initial interpretation of three anti-hunting discourses and return to my original aim of the study - to understand how animals are represented in hunting discourses and to understand the role of scientific knowledge in people's evaluation of hunting - and query whether it is possible to achieve these or even desirable in the context of Q. Relevant to this is the 'Q community's' particular approach to using the method which can pose challenges to researchers. Finally, I will ask the audience to inspect my Q statements and there will be an opportunity to participate in a Q sort for those who are interested. As this research is still in the developmental stages, feedback is most welcome and as such I advance an informal, discussion style seminar. About the speaker Lucy Parry is a PhD Student from the University of Sheffield, and is here to take part in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance’s Summer School. Lucy will be here for slightly over 2 months, and to read more about her research topic and research interests please click on this link: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/politics/research/phd/lucy-parry Previous Next

< Back Elite stalemate in a deeply divided polity: Could a citizens' assembly make legitimate decisions instead? James Pow, Queen's University Belfast Tue 14 November 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract As a deeply divided polity, it comes as no surprise that plenty of political issues in Northern Ireland provoke intense disagreement. However, in a consociational system of government political parties from opposing ethno-national blocs are required to share political power and reach compromise. What happens when power-sharing at the elite-level does not work? What happens if destabilising gridlock threatens the legitimacy of an already fragile political system? This study examines a range of conventional elite-led and citizen-led responses to such a political crisis. Specifically, it compares conventional crisis resolution mechanisms, such as an immediate election, against a more radical alternative: the establishment of a citizens’ assembly of randomly selected citizens. In a survey experiment, we present respondents with a personally unfavourable policy decision on the sensitive subject of Irish language policy, manipulating the venue of the decision. We are interested in the direct effect of decision venue on decision acceptance, as well as the potential moderating effects of ethno-national ideology. These results will be of direct relevance to institutional design in deeply divided societies, specifically on the question of whether or not citizen-led initiatives could be used to strengthen the legitimacy of fragile political systems. About the speaker Jamie is a PhD student based in the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast. Under the supervision of Professors John Garry and Rhiannon Turner, Jamie’s interdisciplinary research experimentally examines how a citizens’ assembly could potentially strengthen the quality of democracy in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Drawing on literature from both political science and political psychology, Jamie’s central research question addresses the extent to which, and the conditions under which, people would recognise a citizens’ assembly as a procedurally legitimate decision-making body. Prior to pursuing doctoral study at Queen’s, Jamie completed a Masters degree in Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Deliberative Democracy PhD Scholarship 20 Jan 2023 Location: Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra Scholarship Start: July 2023 Application deadline: 10 April 2023 Scholarship duration: Three and a half years Stipend rate: $1,153.85 per fortnight plus a relocation allowance to move to Canberra. Eligibility: To be eligible for the scholarship, an applicant must: have completed a Bachelor degree with First Class Honours, or be regarded by the University as having an equivalent level of attainment); be enrolled, or seeking to enrol, as a full-time candidate in a PhD at the University; and be an Australian or New Zealand citizen; or an Australian permanent resident; or an international student eligible to study in Australia on an international student visa. Application documents: PhD proposal (up to 3 pages) outlining proposed area of research and its connection to Centre’s work, CV (with academic results), Names and contact details of 2 academic referees, Writing sample (chapter or a paper/essay). Admission application procedure and deadlines: To apply, please send your complete application documents to hans.asenbaum@canberra.edu.au latest by 10 April 2023 (11.59pm AEST) . Successful applicant will be informed latest by 15 April 2023 by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Successful applicant must submit an Expression of Interest and a HDR Admission Application by 30 April 2023 (11.59pm AEST). Please see information on How to Apply . The Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance is a world-leading research institution aiming to transform democracies to become more inclusive, participatory, and sensitive to good reasons. The Deliberative Democracy PhD scholarship is designed for a student to research any topic related to the Centre’s work. Interested applicants should consult the Centre’s website for a sense of the kinds of research undertaken in the Centre, and whether their project might fit: https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/centres/cddgg Potential primary supervisors are Dr Hans Asenbaum , Prof John Dryzek and Prof Simon Niemeyer . The research topic of PhD projects will fall broadly within the field of deliberative democracy. Possible topics include, but are not limited to democratic transformation, environmental politics, global governance, political communication, identity, inclusion, digital politics, democracy in crisis, deliberative reasoning, deliberative systems, democratic innovations, gender, feminist research, social movements, and participatory research methods. Projects in democratic theory and/or using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods, as well as multidisciplinary projects are welcome. Inquires: Please direct any questions or requests for more information to hans.asenbaum@canberra.edu.au .

< Back Sahana Sehgal PhD Candidate About Sahana is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on multiculturalism and cultural diversity. She is interested in investigating the lack of intercultural engagement amongst migrant communities in Australia. Before moving to Australia, Sahana completed her Bachelor of Mass Media (Journalism) from the University of Mumbai. Sahana worked in the social impact and community services sector in India. As a Teach for India Fellow (2013- 2015) and briefly as a Program Coordinator for the iTeach Fellowship (2015-2016), Sahana worked towards improving achievement outcomes for public school students and teaching graduates. Following which, she worked as a Milaap Fellow (2016), exploring microfinance and skill development in rural Tamil Nadu, India. Sahana moved to Australia to complete her Master of International Relations (2017- 2018) from the Australian National University (ANU). Sahana briefly worked as a Sessional Academic for the Indian Security and Foreign Policy course, taught at the ANU. She is employed at the Canberra Multicultural Service (FM 91.1) and works in collaboration with ethnic language broadcasters and coordinators; actively seeking, developing and maintaining partnerships with external stakeholders; and managing grants, and community engagement initiatives and media projects. Dissertation Sahana's PhD dissertation is provisionally entitled ‘ Barriers and Enablers of Intercultural Engagement in Australia: The Case of Indian Diaspora in Canberra’. It seeks to improve the policy and practice of multiculturalism in Australia by identifying pathways to deepen intercultural engagement amongst migrant communities. Australian multiculturalism, while a successful project and policy framework since the 1970s, does not emphasise intercultural engagement in its practice and thus fails to promote interaction at a micro, community level. Advancing intercultural engagement is a key for the future of multiculturalism in Australia. Only by making multiculturalism more interactive, Australia can respond to the emerging ‘super-diversity’ in this country. This research seeks to understand the enablers and barriers of intercultural engagement through an in-depth study of the Indian diaspora in Canberra as a case study. While the Indian diaspora is only one ethnic community among many others, it is a suitable case for exploring the questions this research seeks to respond to. The project will offer new insights on how different actors perceive and practice intercultural engagement focusing on three different yet interconnected levels of analysis within the public domain- the public, civic actors, and government agencies. It will involve interviews with key actors, focus groups with the members of the Indian diaspora and document analysis of policy documents with respect to multiculturalism and intercultural engagement. Conference Presentations ‘Negotiating Multiculturalism: The Linear and the Lateral.’ 3rd Advancing Community Cohesion Conference, 12 February 2020. Western Sydney University, Australia ‘Negotiating Multiculturalism: The Linear and the Lateral.’ Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA) Conference, October 2019. PhD supervisors Selen Ercan (Primary supervisor) Caroline Ng Tseung Wong Tak Wan (Secondary supervisor) Kim Rubenstein (Advisor) Administration Co-convener, Seminar Series of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, 2022-present Scholarships and Prizes University of Canberra and Canberra Multicultural Service Co-Funded Stipend Scholarship, 2021-2025.

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Distinguished Professor John Dryzek has been elected to The British Academy 23 July 2023 Congratulations to our own Distinguished Professor John Dryzek, who has been elected to the British Academy, an honour given to scholars who have attained distinction in the social sciences and humanities. John has considerable international standing as a scholar in the areas of political science, democratic theory and practice at all levels from the local to the global, political philosophy, environmental politics and climate governance. John is already a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Election to the British Academy underlines John’s influence and impact beyond Australia.

< Back Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedies to Deliberative Action Nicole Curato 2019 , Oxford University Press Winner of the Virginia Miralao Best Book Prize from the Philippine Social Science Council Summary Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedy to Deliberative Action investigates how democratic politics can unfold in creative and unexpected of ways even at the most trying of times. Drawing on three years of fieldwork in disaster-affected communities in Tacloban City, Philippines, this book presents ethnographic portraits of how typhoon survivors actively perform their suffering to secure political gains. These ethnographic descriptions come together in a theoretical project that makes a case for a multimodal view of deliberative action. It underscores the embodied, visual, performative and subtle ways in which affective political claims are constructed and received. It concludes by arguing that while emotions play a role in amplifying marginalized political claims, it also creates hierarchies of misery that renders some forms of suffering more deserving of compassion than others. Read more Previous Next

< Back Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy Selen A. Ercan, Hans Asenbaum, Nicole Curato, Ricardo F. Mendonca 2022 , Oxford University Press Summary Offers comprehensive coverage of 31 research methods written by a global and diverse line-up of scholars in the field. Covers a selection of both established social science methods and novel methodologies specifically developed to investigate deliberative democracy in practice. Read more Previous Next

< Back Walter Baber Associate About Walter F. Baber is a professor in the Environmental Sciences and Policy Program and the Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Long Beach. He is also a lead member of the Amsterdam-based Earth System Governance Project and an Affiliated Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University.

Ricardo F. Mendonça, Camilo Aggio, Viktor Chagas, Selen Ercan, Viviane Freitas, Filipe Motta, Rayza Sarmento, Francisco Tavares < Back Deliberative democracy in the face of democratic crisis: Contributions, dilemmas and the ways forward Investigator(s): Ricardo F. Mendonça, Camilo Aggio, Viktor Chagas, Selen Ercan, Viviane Freitas, Filipe Motta, Rayza Sarmento, Francisco Tavares Funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development ($15,800 via University of Minas Gerais) Project Description The project seeks to specify the challenges contemporary democracies face and advance the ways deliberative perspective can help address these challenges. Selen Ercan teams up once again with our associate Ricardo F. Mendonça to investigate the context of democratic crisis from a perspective of deliberative democracy.

< Back The place and role of the intimate sphere in deliberative systems Tetsuki Tamura, Nagoya University Tue 15 March 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract This presentation reconsiders the place and the role of the intimate sphere in deliberative systems. While recently developing deliberative systems approach focuses on the connection between different sites and practices of deliberative and non-deliberative democracies and begins to pay attention to various sites of deliberation, the intimate sphere has not got enough attention except both the original suggestion of ‘everyday talk’ by Jane Mansbridge (1999) and her other essays and the most recent formulation of a deliberative system by John S. Dryzek and Hayley Stevenson (2014). However, this presentation contends that their understandings of the intimate sphere are still insufficient especially in the light of another aim of the deliberative systems approach; deliberative democracy beyond liberal democracy. Both Mansbridge and Dryzek/Stevenson do not fully overcome the liberal democratic conception of the public-private dichotomy and they are still shackled by the ‘methodological governmentalism’. This presentation argues that introducing the concept of ‘nested deliberative systems’ makes it possible for us to see not only state but also the intimate sphere as a deliberative system and to overcome the public-private distinction entirely. About the speaker Tetsuki Tamura is professor of political science at the Graduate School of Law, Nagoya University, Japan. He is a former visiting scholar and a current associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance. His research interests include contemporary democratic theory including deliberative democracy, the welfare state and basic income, feminism and politics, and the relationship between normative theory and empirical analysis. For more information, visit the following website: http://researchmap.jp/tetsuki.tamura/?lang=english . Previous Next

< Back DECOLONIZING DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY In this talk Bobby Banerjee provides a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. About this event In this talk Bobby Banerjee provides a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. Legacies of colonialism have generally been overlooked in theories of democracy. These omissions challenge several key assumptions of deliberative democracy. Banerjee argues that deliberative democracy does not travel well outside Western sites and its key assumptions begin to unravel in the ‘developing’ regions of the world. The context for a decolonial critique of deliberative democracy is the ongoing violent conflicts over resource extraction in the former colonies of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Banerjee argues that deliberative democracy cannot take into account the needs of marginalized stakeholders who are defending their lands and livelihoods. Consequently political corporate social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives, which reflect deliberative processes at the market-society interface can diminish the welfare of communities impacted by extraction. Several governance challenges arise as a result of these power asymmetries and Banerjee develops a translocal governance framework from the perspective of vulnerable stakeholders that can enable a more progressive approach to societal governance of multinational corporations. Bobby Banerjee is Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Research & Enterprise at Bayes Business School, City University of London. He researches and teaches on corporate social irresponsibility, unsustainability, climate justice and decolonial resistance movements. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

< Back Ian O'Flynn Associate About Ian O'Flynn's main research interest is in exploring the implications of deliberative democracy for questions of social and political integration in multicultural and multinational societies. is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, UK.

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Democracy Play Workshop with Mathias Poulsen 21 Oct 2022

< 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