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< Back Temple Uwalaka Postdoctoral Research Fellow About Dr Temple Uwalaka is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis. Temple is also a Lecturer in Communication at the Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. His research interests include digital activism, digital journalism, political marketing, and the use of online and mobile media to influence political change. His work has been published in the Journalism Studies, Communication and the Public, Media International Australia, Communication Research and Practice, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Journal of Political Marketing, African Journalism Studies among others. He has taught diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate level units in many areas of communication including Marketing Communication, Strategic Communication, Journalism, and Public Relations. Key Publications Uwalaka, T. (2024). Social media as solidarity vehicle during the 2020# EndSARS Protests in Nigeria. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 59(2), 338-353. Uwalaka, T., Amadi, A. F., Nwala, B., & Wokoro, P. (2023). Online harassment of journalists in Nigeria: audience motivations and solutions. Media International Australia, 1329878X231206840. Uwalaka, T., & Amadi, F. (2023). Beyond “online notice-me”: Analysing online harassment experiences of journalists in Nigeria. Journalism Studies, 24(15), 1937-1956. Uwalaka, T. (2023). ‘Abba Kyari did not die of Coronavirus’: Social media and fake news during a global pandemic in Nigeria. Media International Australia, 188(1), 18-33. Uwalaka, T. (2023). Nigerian Military Strategic Use of Social Media During Online Firestorms: An Appraisal of the NDA Terrorist Attack. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 01968599231151727. Uwalaka, T., & Nwala, B. (2023). Examining the role of social media and mobile social networking applications in socio-political contestations in Nigeria. Communication and the Public , 20570473231168474. Uwalaka, T. (2023). Evaluating Military Use of Social Media for Political Branding during Online Firestorms: An Analysis of the Afghan Troops Withdrawal. Journal of Political Marketing, 1-17. My Google Scholar address link . Teaching Convener, Global Strategic Communication Planning, 2020-present Convener, Strategic and Crisis Communication 2020-present Convener, Media Analysis and Planning

< Back New water for water dispute resolution: Tribal water disputes in Arizona and refugee host communities in Lebanon and Jordan Rhett Larson, Arizona State University Tue 10 July 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Water scarcity often leads to water disputes. New water supplies—such as bulk water imports, desalination, cloud seeding, or increased stream flows from improved forest management—can mitigate water scarcity and thus help avoid, resolve, or mitigate water disputes. However, new water supplies can also aggravate water disputes if not developed in concert with legal reforms. This Article evaluates the role of new water in two cases of water disputes in arid regions and proposes legal reforms to promote new water a means of water dispute resolution. The first case is the adjudication of water rights in the Gila River basin in Arizona, including the long-standing water dispute between the Hope Tribe and the Navajo Nation. The second case involved disputes over water resources in refugee host communities in Lebanon and Jordan. In each case, development of new water faces legal obstacles and environmental concerns that must be overcome if those augmented supplies are to help address ongoing water disputes. About the speaker Rhett Larson is a Morrison Fellow in Water Law and associate professor in the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. He is also a faculty fellow in the Center for Law and Global Affairs, and the Center for Law, Science, and Innovation. He is a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. Professor Larson’s research and teaching interests are in property law, administrative law, and environmental and natural resource law, in particular, domestic and international water law and policy. Professor Larson’s research focuses on the impact of technological innovation on water rights regimes, in particularly transboundary waters, and on the sustainability implications of a human right to water. He works on dispute resolution and improved processes in water rights adjudications in Arizona and the Colorado River Basin with the Kyl Center for Water Policy. Professor Larson was a visiting professor and Fulbright Scholar at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, and works in the Middle East on water security issues. Professor Larson also practiced environmental and natural resource law with law firms in Arizona, focusing on water rights, water quality, and real estate transactions. Previous Next

Associates Albert Dzur Associate View Profile Andrew Knops Associate View Profile Carolyn Hendriks Associate and Former PhD Student View Profile Alexander Geisler Associate View Profile Baogang He Associate View Profile Catherine Clutton Associate View Profile Andre Bachtiger Associate View Profile Benjamin Lyons Associate View Profile Catherine Settle Associate View Profile Andreas Schaeffer Associate View Profile Bob Goodin Associate View Profile Dannica Fleuss Associate View Profile 1 2 3 4 5 1 ... 1 2 3 4 5 ... 5

< Back Australian participatory and deliberative practitioners - what we're learning Helen Christensen, University of Technology Sydney Tue 10 November 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel . Abstract This presentation will present findings from a mixed-method study which investigates Australian participatory and deliberative practitioners. These practitioners, who design, deliver and evaluate democratic processes on behalf of public institutions, are uniquely placed – serving both their publics and the organisations that employ or contract them simultaneously. This research explores the tensions they experience in this role and also provides information about who they are – their backgrounds and experience and the approach they take to the work. The research shows that the practitioner cohort is broad and getting broader – a phenomenon which likely has implications for the quality of democratic practice. About the speaker Helen Christensen is an engagement practitioner, trainer and researcher. She is an Industry Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy and Governance at the University of Technology where she recently completed a PhD exploring the practice and professionalisation of community engagement in Australian local government. Helen is the Principal of The Public Engagement Practice, a consultancy focused on building the capabilities of public organisations to design and deliver engagement themselves and she is also an IAP2 trainer. Previous Next

< Back Disability and deliberative democracy: The case for an embodied deliberation Bahadir Celiktemur, University of Warwick Tue 12 May 2015 11:00am - 12:00pm Fishbowl, Building 24, University of Canberra Abstract In its quest for normative legitimacy, deliberative democracy calls for qualified participation from citizens that would be demanding even in the most mature democracies. Its demands for rational reasoning and preference for the force of the better argument are almost impossible to meet for those who lack communicative abilities, and disqualify them from meaningful participation in deliberative sites. My research addresses the exclusion of disability from deliberative democracy and aims to close the gap between the demands of deliberative democratic theory and the reality of life with disability. My presentation today focusses on what disability teaches deliberative democrats. In this regard explore the spatiality of the deliberative site, problematize the disembodiedness of deliberation, and propose an embodied deliberation through which the voice of the disabled can be heard in deliberative sites. To explain how the embodiedness of disability changes the deliberative sites and gives space and voice to the disabled, I make use of the works of two unlikely names, Jacques Rancière and Judith Butler. About the speaker Bahadir Celiktemur is a final year PhD candidate at the University of Warwick (UK) and a visiting scholar at Griffiths University. His doctoral research, informed by his professional background in the third sector, explores how people with disabilities can be included in deliberative democracy. He also works with disabled people and their allies in Gloucestershire (UK) for a more disability-inclusive local democracy. Previous Next

< 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 The people's duty Shmulik Nili, Australian National University Tue 1 August 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract What is the moral way to respond to the domestic and international aspects of pervasive corruption, when disrupting such corruption might pose serious threats to political and economic stability? What is the moral way to respond to other abuses of public office – and other abuses of public coffers - in the face of such threats? How, more generally, should we deal with disturbing social, economic, and political practices given fears about destabilizing effects of reform? This book offers new answers to such political problems, by constructing two new normative frameworks associated with the people, as the collective agent in whose name modern political power is exercised. I contend, first, that there is distinctive normative value to thinking about the people in a liberal democracy as an agent with integrity that can be threatened, paralleling the integrity of an individual person. Specifically, I argue in favor of seeing the core project of a liberal legal system – realizing equal rights - as an identity-grounding project of the sovereign people, and thus as essential to the people’s integrity. Second, I pursue an analogous move with regard to the people’s property. I present a philosophical account of public property revolving around the proprietary claims that are intertwined in the sovereign people’s moral power to create property rights through the legal system. After developing these integrity and property frameworks, I elaborate their distinctive implications for a range of concrete policy problems around the world. I argue that ideas regarding the people’s integrity and property illuminate corruption scandals that threaten to topple the entire political class (as is currently the case in Brazil). These ideas also cast the practices of executive immunity and presidential pardons as violations of the law’s egalitarian commitments (thus challenging, for instance, the French and American constitutions). Examining Israel’s unstable politics, I further show how attention to the people’s integrity and property can advance our thinking about deeply divided societies. Finally, delving into policy problems surrounding odious debt, I demonstrate how ideas concerning the people’s integrity and property can guide our thinking about the international aspects of entrenched corruption. About the speaker I am a post-doctoral research fellow at the Australian National University's Research School of the Social Sciences (School of Philosophy). Starting in September 2017, I will be an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University. I received my PhD in political science from Yale University (2016). My main research focuses on the moral assessment of global politics. This focus is informed by social science, by the history of political thought, and by a methodological emphasis on the practical task of political philosophy. My secondary research interests include meeting points between analytical and continental philosophy, as well as conflict and identity in my native Israel. Previous Next

Faculty Affiliate < Back Jean-Paul Gagnon Faculty Affiliate About Jean-Paul Gagnon is a democratic theorist specializing in democracy's linguistic artifacts and the theory of non-human democracy. He edits the Berghahn (Oxford/New York) journal Democratic Theory and the Palgrave Macmillan book series on The Theories, Concepts, and Practices of Democracy. He is director of the nascent Foundation For the Philosophy of Democracy.

Former PhD student < Back Michael Rollens Former PhD student About Michael completed his dissertation entitled ‘Theory of Analytic Journalism’ in 2014 at the Australian National University. He was supervised by David West with the assistance of John Dryzek and Simon Niemeyer.

< Back Arguing for deliberation without ultimate justification: Why we should decide to be deliberative democrats Dannica Fleuss, Helmut-Schmidt University Tue 14 August 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract A starting point of post-structuralist political theory is the assumption that all social and political norms are contingent. From this angle, Oliver Marchart (2007, 2015) challenges „foundationalist“ deliberative theory for attempting to give an ultimate justification for political norms. This seminar explores ways to respond to this challenge from the perspective of deliberative democracy: Accepting the claim that all social and political norms are contingent does not necessitate rejecting deliberative theory. Rather, contemporary deliberative theory can provide a valid theoretical perspective even though it is unable to give an ultimate justification for its own principles. Instead of providing a “foundational” justification for deliberative theory’s basic premises, I suggest that deliberative theorists should decide to accept them and discuss ways to demonstrate the value of this decision. About the speaker Dannica is a visiting research scholar at the Centre for Deliberative and Democracy and Global Governance. She completed her PhD on proceduralist democratic theory at the University of Heidelberg in 2016. Currently, she works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Helmut-Schmidt-University, Hamburg. In her postdoctoral project she is doing research on democratic theory and the measurement of democratic deliberation at the macro level by applying a systemic framework. Dannica's research interests include the systemic approach to deliberation, measurements of democratic performance, political cultural studies and the theoretical debate between deliberative democratic theory and poststructuralist approaches. 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 A polychrome approach to social movements and public deliberation Sergio Guillén, Australian National University Tue 17 October 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Within deliberative democrats, the perspective on social movements (SM) has shifted with the ongoing evolution of the field. This has included diverse conceptions such as drivers of discursive contestation, problematic partisans, or complex elements in the deliberative system. In each of those cases, deliberative democracy scholarship has adopted a specific lens that highlights a particular role of social movements in relation to other actors in the deliberative landscape. This emphasis on specific roles allows certain features of SM to be studied in greater depth, but it can also obscure some dimensions that may be relevant for understanding their overall engagement with public deliberation. In my own interpretative study of SM engagement with public deliberation in the highly polarised debate over GMOs in Costa Rica, I sought to develop a more situated grasp of how SM activists enact and construct meaning around their engagement with the diverse spaces of public deliberation. My empirical findings have revealed three distinct orientations within the movement, each of which reflects a converging stream of activist concerns and aspirations in the pursuit of the broader movement goals. While the dominant orientation of partisan resistance corresponds roughly with many of the elements addressed in the scholarship on protest in deliberative systems, the other two orientations trans-partisan inquiry and generative empowerment offer novel elements to the understanding of SM from a deliberative democracy perspective. In this seminar I will discuss the empirical findings of my study concerning the practises through which each orientation of the movement engages with the spaces for public deliberation, and the distinctive claims made through these practises about the content of public discussions, the standing of social actors, the standards of public reasoning, and the sites for public deliberation. I will then outline how these diverse perspectives align in the context of the movement’s collective pursuits and their effects on generating both networked strengths and internal tensions. I will conclude with a discussion of the contributions that a more situated and polychrome exploration of social movements can make to the theory and practice of public deliberation in polarised and diffuse settings. About the speaker Sergio Guillén, is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Crawford School of Public Policy of the Australian National University, and an associated Ph.D. student of the Center for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in Canberra, Australia. His doctoral research studies the engagement of Central American social movements, such as environmental, indigenous and campesino organizations, with the formal and informal sites of public participation and contention in the deliberative system. Before initiating his doctoral studies, he held the position of Senior Specialist in Social Dialogue at the Foundation for Peace and Democracy (FUNPADEM) in Costa Rica. He has worked for 15 years as a certified mediator and dialogue facilitator in public interest conflict resolution in Latin America. Prior to this, he worked internationally on issues of energy poverty and small-scale clean energy development. He holds a degree in Engineering, from Carleton University, a Master of Arts in Environmental Security and Peace from the University for Peace, and a Graduate Certificate in Natural Resources and Organization Management from the University of Michigan. Previous Next

< Back The institutionalization of deliberative democracy in European multi-level states: A comparative analysis of the experience of South Tyrol Elisabeth Alber, Institute for Comparative Federalism at Eurac Research in South Tyrol Tue 9 October 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract The institutionalization of deliberative democracy is progressively experimented as a means to ameliorate decision-making processes at various levels of government, in Europe and worldwide. To what extent the recourse to ordinary citizens as co-creators properly meets the requirements of normative deliberative theory or, in the end, simply serves as an instrumental purpose, heavily depends on the context in which so-called democratic innovations take place. Empirical research shows that the increasing lack of trust in traditional channels of representative decision-making and the structural limits of direct democracy translate in what has been defined with the metaphor of the dam effect: the water tries to flow in alternative ways, and additional channels in decision-making processes have to be used so as not to waste too much water. Scholars of political and legal science, at different pace and with different foci, are increasingly paying attention to the proliferation of practices of deliberative democracy and looking for the development of sound criteria on how to define, classify and explain this phenomenon. Common to all attempts is the fact that practices of deliberative democracy go beyond the majoritarian rule of interest aggregation by voting and, in order to improve the quality of democracy itself, they propose tools that are centered on public reasoning among individuals (and groups). The institutionalization of such tools is increasingly discussed in academia, and among practitioners: both call – even though for different reasons – for an ever more articulated attention to the procedural design of deliberative processes and its impacts on both the organization of a deliberative process itself and the role of persons/groups, not only in the preparation and implementation phase of a deliberative process itself, but also when it comes to evaluating it (a phase which mostly is neglected). Moreover, when it comes to deliberative democracy in ethnically plural (divided) societies, the institutionalization of a deliberative democracy process faces additional challenges. Even though from a normative basis it can be argued that negotiations between groups (typical for consociational democracy arrangements) should be replaced by deliberation aiming at rendering any divided society more sustainable in the long run, in practice, the institutionalization of deliberative democracy does highlight (and eventually also increase) tensions, rather than reducing them. Therefore, particular attention has to be paid on the procedural aspects of processes of deliberative democracy. In this presentation, I firstly outline general principles of institutionalized deliberative democracy at subnational level in European federal and regional States. I present some examples and highlight how deliberative democracy processes came into being. Secondly, I briefly present an excursus on the geographical Alpine region and introduce South Tyrol and Trentino, two autonomous provinces that together form one out of five autonomous regions in Italy. Their autonomy arrangements developed over seven decades. While Trentino is predominantly Italian-speaking, South Tyrol is home to three language groups (German-, Italian- and Ladin-speakers, with German-speakers being the majority). The broad spectrum of complex regulations enshrined in South Tyrol’s autonomy statute (1972) establishes a model of consociational democracy that is characterized by cultural autonomy of the groups, a system of veto rights to defend each group’s vital interests, language parity between the groups, and ethnic proportionality ranging from the field of public employment to education and finances. Thirdly, my presentation aims at comparatively analyzing the two large-scaled deliberative processes that were undertaken from 2016-2018 in South Tyrol and Trentino. Ordinary citizens, organized civil society, stakeholders and politicians were asked to elaborate proposals for the amendment of the autonomous statute of the region Trentino-South Tyrol (which contains a few provisions applying to the regional level and two large distinct parts containing provisions applying to Trentino and South Tyrol). Both in its scope (revision of the basic law) and method (inclusiveness in territorial, intergenerational and socio-linguistic terms) the deliberative processes in Trentino and in South Tyrol are certainly a novum to the respective autonomous province, and in Italy as well as Europe. Especially in South Tyrol, the institutionalization of such a process challenged core principles of its autonomy. Using data from both processes, I examine key aspects of the institutionalization of each process by both referring to principles of normative deliberative theory and emerging literature on constitutional deliberative democracy/participatory constitution-making (a classification valid also for the two processes in Trentino and South Tyrol, because their basic law is of constitutional rank). About the speaker Elisabeth Alber is Senior Researcher, Leader of the Research Hub “Institutional Innovation and Participatory Democracy” and Academic Lead of the Eurac Federal Scholar in Residence Program at the Institute for Comparative Federalism at Eurac Research in South Tyrol, Italy (www.eurac.edu/sfere). She holds a PhD in Comparative Politics from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and a degree in International Sciences and Diplomacy (Focus on Comparative Public Law) from the University of Turin (Italy). Her research interests are deliberative democracy and participatory constitution-making, comparative federalism and regionalism, decentralization and democratization processes (South-East Asia, especially Myanmar), ethno-linguistic minorities, territorial and personal autonomies. Her working languages are English, German and Italian. Elisabeth can be contacted at elisabeth.alber@eurac.edu and by phone at +39 0471 055 211 (office) or +39 339 32 98 604 (mobile). Her most recent publications in English are: (co-editor with F. Palermo) Federalism As Decision-Making: Changes in Structures, Procedures and Policies, Brill Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2015; (single authored peer-reviewed article) „South Tyrol’s Negotiated Autonomy“, in: Treatises and Documents - Journal for Ethnic Studies, 78, 2017, 41-58; (co-authored peer-reviewed article), “Autonomy Convention and Consulta: Deliberative Democracy in Subnational Minority Contexts“, in: ECMI et al. (eds.), European Yearbook of Minority Issues, Volume 16, Brill Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2018, 194-225. Previous Next

< Back Indigenous grassroots participation and the coevolution of deliberative systems Mei-Fang Fan, National Yang-Ming University Tue 2 October 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Research on deliberative systems with detailed discussions on indigenous democracy and the deliberative features of indigenous activism is limited. The heterogeneous and ambivalent complexity of colonial history and geographical contexts has had a considerable effect on indigenous representatives and indigenous forms of deliberation. Indigenous movement and environmental protests against the dominance of the state are traditionally regarded as nondeliberative. The systemic approach of deliberative democracy argues that activism constitute an integral part of public deliberation, which recognises the contribution of indigenous knowledge and democratic practices to policy-making and wider deliberative systems. This article considers indigenous activism and political communication as a part of the macro-deliberative system as well as a micro deliberative system in itself. Drawing on the controversy on flooding and wild creek remediation projects on Orchid Island, Taiwan, this study explored how indigenous activism facilitate space for deliberation and improve the democratising quality of deliberative systems. Tao tribesmen transcended their original boundaries to engage in communication and activate plural deliberative spaces when facing conflicting new challenges and the government’s dominant policy positions with limited discursive space. Tao activists used the virtual community as both an internal and external communication platform and engaged in transmission and visualisation of traditional knowledge system and practices. Indigenous grassroots participation facilitates knowledge coproduction and social learning and reshapes tribal political subjectivities, which reveals the coevolution of tribal deliberative systems and their interaction with the State, intertwined with deliberative systems. About the speaker Mei-Fang Fan is Professor at the Institute of Science, Technology and Society, National Yang-Ming University and research fellow at the Risk Society and Policy Research Centre, National Taiwan University. She holds a Doctoral degree in Environment and Society from Lancaster University, UK. Research interests include environmental justice and governance; deliberative democracy and public participation in decision-making on risk; participatory budgeting; local knowledge and citizen science. Her recent work on environmental justice, public deliberations on GM foods in Taiwan and nuclear waste facility siting controversy has appeared in the journals Human Ecology, Public Understanding of Science and Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. Mei-Fang sits on the editorial board of Taiwanese journal of public administration and is a member of the Taipei City participatory budgeting government-academia alliance. Previous Next

< Back Empirical assessment of the impacts of deliberative democracy processes A Wendy Russell Tue 9 February 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract A key standard for judging the quality of deliberative processes is impact on political decision-making. Yet impact is a multi-faceted and contested concept, in theory and practice. Macro-political impacts are often indirect and deliberative processes compete with a range of other inputs and factors for influence. The assessment of impacts is complicated by the difficulty of distinguishing measurable impacts from important impacts. As well as the impacts of particular processes, the research is interested in the ‘uptake’ of deliberative democracy generally, and how impact and uptake interact. This seminar relates to a research project, funded by the New Democracy Foundation (nDF), on the impacts of deliberative processes, particularly nDF processes. I will present a preliminary framework for assessing the impacts of deliberative processes, with a focus on macro-political impacts, which will be used in the empirical phase of the research. Input at this stage will be very gratefully accepted. About the speaker Wendy Russell is director of Double Arrow Consulting, a Canberra business specialising in deliberative engagement, and an associate of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. She is also affiliated with the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU, and is ACT regional coordinator for the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). She previously worked in the National Enabling Technologies Strategy – Public Awareness and Community Engagement program of the Commonwealth Department of Industry & Innovation, where she managed the Science & Technology Engagement Pathways (STEP) community engagement program. Before this, she was senior lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Wollongong, where she researched social aspects of biotechnology, transdisciplinary inquiry, and technology assessment. Previous Next

< Back Baogang He Associate About Baogang He has become widely known for his work in Chinese democratization and politics, in particular the deliberative politics in China. He is Alfred Deakin Professor and Chair in International Relations since 2005, at Deakin University, Australia.

< Back Stephen Elstub Associate About Stephen Elstub's research interests include the theory and practice of democracy, democratic innovation, public opinion, political communication, civil society and citizen participation, viewed through the lens deliberative democracy.

< Back Interconnecting deliberative systems: Functions and agents of transmission Stephen Elstub, Newcastle University Tue 5 July 2016 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In recent times, the dominant focus in debates in the field of deliberative democracy has been on deliberative systems. The principal aim of the systemic approach is to promote deliberative democracy at the mass scale by utilising a division of labour in communicative activity between a diversity of interconnected parts. Despite this, ‘interconnection’ represents a lacuna within the systemic approach to deliberative democracy. There is broad agreement that public and empowered spaces need to be connected and that some form of discursive transmission is required to achieve this, however, little detail has been provided on what functions are vital to transmission, what type of agents can fulfil these functions, and how these agents could operate together. This paper contributes to filling this gap by identifying vital systemic transmission functions: dispersion, filtration, and penetration, which are necessary to avoid systemic pathologies emerging. It then proceeds to analyse the extent the media, mini-publics, and interest groups can contribute to fulfilling these transmission functions respectively. About the speaker Stephen Elstub ( stephen.elstub@ncl.ac.uk ) is a Lecturer in British Politics at the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University. His research interests are on deliberative democracy, citizen participation, civil society, public opinion and political communication. He is the author of Towards a Deliberative and Associational Democracy (Edinburgh University Press 2008), editor of Democracy in Theory and Practice (Routledge 2012) and co-editor of Deliberative Democracy: Issues and Cases (Edinburgh University Press 2014). He is also the associate editor of the journal Representation. Previous Next

< Back Democratic proceduralism and its limits: From philosophical principles to political institutions Dannica Fleuss, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg Tue 25 February 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In recent years Western democracies’ legitimacy has been heavily under attack. The decline in public support for democratic institutions manifests particularly in anti-elitism, the rise of populist and post-truth politics. A branch of political science- and public policy-scholars suggested to counteract such developments by strengthening the role of experts in political decision-making (e.g., Brennan 2016, chapter 8; Willke 2007; 2014). Such expertocratic proposals for reforming existing democratic institutions and political practices, however, contradict normative perspectives that consider the equal participation of all affected to be the core requirement of democratic legitimacy. Proceduralist political philosophy proposes a “genuinely democratic” understanding of democratic legitimacy: Proceduralists argue that the equal inclusion of all affected citizens must be the only criterion for legitimacy (Fleuß 2017; see Peter 2008; Estlund 2007; Christiano 2004). This philosophical stance has so far not been translated into institutional design and application-oriented proposals for political practice. To provide a comprehensive conception of proceduralist legitimacy, I aim at “bridging the gap” between proceduralist philosophy and application-oriented discussions of institutional design. I provide a brief overview of the argumentative path that starts out by abstract philosophical debates and, guided by a meta-theoretical framework, ultimately proposes concrete suggestions for institutions. Against this background, the lecture focuses on two claims that are at the heart of the book’s approach: A Critical Theory-inspired conceptualization of proceduralist legitimacy can provide a coherent and appealing normative ideal for contemporary democratic politics (and thereby avoids the major pitfalls of “classic” proceduralist approaches). Radically proceduralist institutional devices must be created, criticized and, potentially, changed by the citizens of democratic societies. To realize this ideal in political reality and to create institutional devices for this purpose, we must (a) adopt a systemic perspective on ‘institutional design’ and (b) create institutions that facilitate the reversibility of decisions and procedural regulations. References Christiano, T. (2004). The Authority of Democracy. Journal of Political Philosophy, 12(3), 266– 290. Estlund, D. M. (2008). Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fleuß, D. (2017). Prozeduren, Rechte, Demokratie. Das legitimatorische Potential von Verfahren für politische Systeme. [English Title: “The Normative Legitimacy of Democracies. On the Limits of Proceduralism”]. Dissertation, Heidelberg University. Online: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/23203/. Peter, F. (2008). Pure Epistemic Proceduralism. Episteme, 5(1), 33–55. Willke, H. (2007). Smart governance: governing the global knowledge society. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus/Chicago University Press. Willke, H. (2014). Demokratie in Zeiten der Konfusion. Berlin: Suhrkamp. About the speaker Dannica Fleuss is a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer in political theory at Helmut Schmidt University (Hamburg) and a research associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She holds an MA in philosophy and political science and a PhD in political science from Heidelberg University. From 2014 until 2017, Dannica worked as a lecturer at the departments of political science and philosophy at Heidelberg University. In 2018 and 2019, she spent research visits at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance (University of Canberra) and the Centre for the Study of Democracy (University of Westminster). Her research deals with conceptualizations of democratic legitimacy, philosophy of science and deliberative democracy. Dannica’s postdoctoral project aims at developing a measurement of nation states’ democratic quality that is firmly grounded in deliberative democratic theory. Previous Next

Former PhD student < Back Katherine Curchin Former PhD student About Katherine is an applied political philosopher with research interests in normative political philosophy, social policy and Indigenous policy in Australia. Katherine completed her PhD in Political Science under the supervision of Prof John Dryzek in 2010. Her doctoral thesis drew upon deliberative democratic theory to explore the ethics of criticising other cultures.