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< Back Lyn Carson Associate About Lyn Carson has taught and researched in the field of deliberative democracy, asking how the wider public can help to resolve policy challenges. She was involved in convening Australia's first Consensus Conference, the first Deliberative Polls, the first Australian Citizens' Parliament, and numerous Citizens' Juries and Community Summits.

< Back Amy McGregor-Dainton PhD Candidate About Amy McGregor-Dainton is a Ph.D Candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Amy has worked as a journalist in regional Victoria, a public servant at councils in Australia and the UK, and a policy adviser for the Labor Party in the Australian Capital Territory. It was through these roles that Amy became interested in why citizens are dissatisfied and distrustful of government and how they communicate those feelings of disaffection. Dissertation With growing evidence of democratic backsliding around the world, including in countries with long-established democratic traditions and institutions, Amy’s research is focused on how low levels of political disaffection and communication of political disaffection in the public sphere might be a risk to democracy in Australia. Amy’s Ph.D research is focused on the implicit expectations citizens have of government in Australia and how those expectations are used to evaluate government performance. Further, this project seeks to understand how communication among citizens, as well as from citizens to government actors, about unmet expectations might be influencing narratives about the quality of democracy in Australia. This project involves interviewing politicians and public servants across three levels of government (local, state and federal) in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, as well as a large sample of citizens and a range of contributors to the public debate about government. Data from these interviews will then be analysed thematically. PhD Supervisors Adele Webb Jordan McSwiney Professional memberships Amy is a member of the Australian Political Studies Association and the Australia Aotearoa New Zealand Communication Association.

Claudia Benham, Simon Niemeyer and Hannah Barrowman < Back Great Barrier Reef Futures Citizens’ Jury Investigator(s): Claudia Benham, Simon Niemeyer and Hannah Barrowman Funded through James Cook University, the Project Team includes: Claudia Benham Simon Niemeyer Hannah Barrowman Project Description Simon Niemeyer and Hannah Barrowman are collaborating with Claudia Benham (James Cook University) in a project trialling deliberative engagement on the future of the Great Barrier Reef. The three-day Citizens’ Jury examines issues of reef management and regional economic development in the context of climate change.

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 Multilingual parties and the ethics of partisanship Matteo Bonotti, Monash University Tue 20 November 2018 The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract This paper argues that multilingual political parties, i.e. parties that exist and operate across linguistic boundaries by using different languages, are normatively superior to those that use a lingua franca at realizing some of the key goals of partisanship. These involve promoting the common good; educating party members and citizens in general; fostering an attitude to toleration and compromise; and offering a linkage between citizens and government. The paper has important implications for debates on the role of linguistic diversity in democratic theory and practice, and on the challenges of multilingualism in polities such as the European Union. About the speaker Matteo Bonotti is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Monash University, having previous taught at Cardiff University, Queen’s University Belfast, and the University of Edinburgh. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as the American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, the Journal of Applied Philosophy, the European Journal of Political Theory, Philosophy & Social Criticism, the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, the Journal of Social Philosophy, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, and Res Publica. His monograph Partisanship and Political Liberalism in Diverse Societies was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. Matteo's research interests are diverse but unified by a common underlying theme: ethical pluralism and cultural diversity in contemporary societies, and the question of how the state should respond to them. Matteo is currently writing a monograph (with Anne Barnhill, Johns Hopkins University) on healthy eating policy and liberal political philosophy, which is under contract with Oxford University Press. His general research interests also include linguistic justice, free speech, religion and political theory, and the normative dimensions of partisanship. Previous Next

Research Assistant < Back Juliana Rocha Research Assistant About Juliana Rocha first joined the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in 2013 as a research assistant working with Simon Niemeyer on his Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project, with John Dryzek on his ARC Laureate Fellowship Project, and with Selen Ercan on an ARC Project.

John Dryzek < Back Medical Research Future Fund Investigator(s): John Dryzek Funded through Genomic Health Futures Mission Grant (2020-2022) Genome Editing: Formulating an Australian Community Response (AU$420,000), Project Team includes: John Dryzek Project Description

< Back The Forum, the System, and the Polity: Three Varieties of Democratic Theory John S. Dryzek 2017 , Political Theory 45 (5): 610-36. Summary Read more Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Building Democratic Resilience - Report Launch 13 Oct 2022 On 13 October, we launched the report Building Democratic Resilience - Public Sphere Responses to Violent Extremism, commissioned by the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. The launch took place at the ANU, hosted by the F reilich Project for the Study of Bigotry . Panelists included Dr Jordan McSwiney, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance (CDDGG) at the University of Canberra, Dr Emily Corner, Senior Lecturer of Criminology at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University, and Pia van de Zandt, Director of the Connected Communities team in Department of Premier and Cabinet, NSW. Pictured: Selen A. Ercan (CDDGG), Peter Balint (UNSW), Pia van de Zandt (NSW Government) and Jordan McSwiney (CDDGG)

< Back Stakeholder engagement and deliberation in environmental approvals: A case study of Gladstone, Queensland Claudia Benham, Australian National University Tue 3 June 2014 11:00am – 12:00pm Fishbowl, Building 24, University of Canberra Abstract Australia’s natural gas boom has prompted public concern over the industry’s potential to impact on communities and the environment. It has been suggested that public deliberation, in the context of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and approvals processes, can promote more sustainable decision making that incorporates a range of community perspectives. This is particularly important given the international commitments of Australian gas producers to principles of sustainable development. Claudia’s PhD research explores community perceptions of the quality of public deliberation during the environmental approvals process for three Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) plants in Queensland, Australia. In this presentation, she will discuss the preliminary findings of her research with residents in the Gladstone Region. These early findings suggest that opportunities for public participation through public meetings were provided during the LNG approvals processes, but there remains room for improvement in the deliberative quality of these engagements, and in linking the outcomes of public meetings to decision making processes. About the speaker Claudia is a PhD student in the Fenner School of Environment and Society and CSIRO Science into Society Group. Her PhD research examines the social and ecological impacts of natural gas developments, and seeks to identify opportunities for managing these impacts through deliberative forms of governance. Claudia has previously worked for the Australian Government in water policy and marine conservation roles, and she is particularly interested in the application of deliberative approaches to environmental problems with global effects, especially on marine and coastal environments. She has published on water resources management and NRM funding in Australia. Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back Call for Papers: Deliberative Democracy Summer School 2024 18 Apr 2023 APPLY HERE! Please submit the completed form to our research assistant, Hans Asenbaum at hans.asenbaum@canberra.edu.au by 30 June 2023. For questions, please contact the summer school convenor, Hans Asenbaum at hans.asenbaum@canberra.edu.au .

< Back John Uhr Associate About John Uhr is a Professor of Political Science in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University.

< Back Lala Muradova Associate About Lala Muradova uses experimental research designs combined with observation of real-world deliberative practices to study the cognitive and affective processes underlying democratic deliberation and to understand how individuals participate in deliberative processes. In 2019, Lala received the European Consortium for Political Research’s Best Paper Prize in the Democratic Innovations stream.

< Back Eda Keremoglu-Waibler Associate About Eda Keremoglu-Waibler's PhD research looks at the role of inclusionary and deliberative institutions in nondemocratic regimes, examining their impact on policy, the provision of public goods and regime stability. She lectures on authoritarian regimes as well as (political) cultural studies and public opinion research in Stuttgart.

< Back MAPPING DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS IN PARTICIPEDIA ABSTRACT This presentation proposes a new analytical approach to classifying democratic innovations based on prototypical radial categorization. The proposed categorization strategy is empirically evaluated on real-world democratic innovations drawn from Participedia, the largest crowdsourcing platform in democratic innovation. Participedia database is analyzed through multiple factor analysis (MFA) and hierarchical clustering on principal components (HCPC). The analysis highlights four clusters that are a subset of two main groups that coincide with the normative categorization of participatory and deliberative democracy. BIO Francesco Veri is a Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Previous Next

< Back The Crisis of Democracy and the Science of Deliberation Dryzek, J.S., Bächtiger, A. et al 2019 , Science 363: 1144-46. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw2694 Summary Read more Previous Next

< Back Negotiating sisterhood in the Pacific region: Feminist alliances across diversity Jane Alver, University of Canberra Tue 1 December 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel . Abstract This seminar presentation covers my recently completed PhD research conducted at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, in which I sought to understand how civil society actors in the Pacific can build diverse feminist alliances and a shared voice. I undertook an in-depth exploration of two recent initiatives aimed at forming Pacific feminist regional alliances; The Pacific Feminist Forum and the We Rise Coalition. Drawing on interviews, a focus group, and participant observation, I will present various insights of the research on a ‘negotiated sisterhood’ and explain how it is enacted in the Pacific. This concept helps to capture the dynamic and diverse nature of the feminism and feminist activities in the region and is relevant to scholars in social movement studies, alliance building and gender studies About the speaker Jane Alver is PhD Candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy. Her research focuses on Pacific feminist civil society. Previous Next

< 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

< Back End of Year Report 2025 Centre for Deliberative Democracy 2025 , University of Canberra Summary Welcome to the 2025 end-of-year report of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy. This year, the Centre advanced major research, teaching, and public engagement initiatives. The leadership of our Early Career Researchers and strong collaborations strengthened democratic practice and advanced the vision of the Faculty of Business, Government and Law and the University of Canberra. Read more Previous Next

< Back End of Year Report 2024 Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance 2024 , University of Canberra Summary Welcome to the 2024 end-of-year report of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. This year has been especially meaningful for us, as it marked the 10th anniversary of our Centre at the University of Canberra. This milestone provided a valuable opportunity to celebrate our collective achievements, reflect on the past decade, and envision the future of our work in deliberative democracy. Read more Previous Next