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< 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 The potential of deliberative democracy in like-minded settings Kimmo Grönlund, Åbo Akademi University Tue 14 February 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract When groups consisting of like-minded participants discuss among themselves, their views tend to become more extreme. This phenomenon is known as group polarization. Cass Sunstein (2002, 2009) calls this discussion in like-minded groups ‘enclave deliberation’. Enclave deliberation has become increasingly common, especially in online communities, where it is easy to find like-minded contexts. In the long run, the tendency to discuss in enclaves may threaten democracy, since cross-cutting deliberation with different viewpoints and interests is needed in order to find common solutions for political conflicts. Finnish population-based experiments confirm that like-minded groups tend to become more extreme when they discuss freely. However, when like-minded groups discuss under specific deliberative norms, they do not become more extreme. This finding is relevant to both deliberative theory and policy-making. If the increased polarization tendencies in western democracies can be alleviated with certain rules (especially online), a less hostile, depolarized public sphere could be achieved. About the speaker Kimmo Grönlund is Professor of Political Science and Director of Research of the Social Science Research Institute at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. He is Convenor (together with André Bächtiger) of the Standing Group on Democratic Innovations at the ECPR and Director of the Finnish National Election Study 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

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

< Back Descriptive representation revisited Anne Phillips, London School of Economics Tue 13 February 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract It is now part of the shared assumptions of liberal democracy that representation involves some component of what has come to be known (though it’s not a term I much like) as ‘descriptive’ representation. Politicians, political commentators, and citizens now routinely comment on the gender and ethnic composition of elected assemblies, and take it as self-evident progress when an election generates a higher proportion of women representatives or a more ethnically diverse legislature. The normative arguments are by no means settled, as is evidenced by the slow progress towards anything approaching parity, but my focus in this seminar is more specifically on the challenge posed by the recent rise in populism. Populism derives its power from a sense of not being represented by a political elite perceived as in some way not ‘of the people’: as metropolitan, intellectual, establishment, etc. To that extent, it seems to express a feeling of marginality and under-representation of the kind that fuelled claims for descriptive representation, though with an emphasis more on class than gender or racial exclusion. But in invoking ‘the people’, populist movements also typically reject preoccupations with anti-racism, LGBTQ rights, multiculturalism, gender equality , all of which are represented as elite preoccupations, at odds with the concerns of ‘working’ or ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ people. The turn towards populism then seems simultaneously to confirm the importance of descriptive representation and to reject much of its founding principles. The point of the seminar is to think about this. About the speaker Anne Phillips is the Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science in the Government Department at the London School of Economics. Her work engages with issues of democracy and representation; equality and difference; feminism and multiculturalism; and the dangers in regarding the body as property. Her publications include The Politics of Presence (1995), Which Equalities Matter? (1999), Multiculturalism without Culture (2007), Our Bodies, Whose Property? (2013), and The Politics of the Human (2015). She also co-edited, with John Dryzek and Bonnie Honig, the 2006 Oxford Handbook of Political Theory. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2012, and in 2016 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the PSA. Previous Next

< Back The consensus project and three levels of deliberation Emmanuel Ani, University of Ghana Tue 5 December 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract The basic argument is that the consensus debate has not been very meaningful until now because deliberation as well as issues for deliberation have not been categorized into different levels to expose the varying challenges of reaching common agreement and the kinds of deliberative approaches entailed in each category. The research attempts this categorization. The objective is to further clarify the debate and outline a few implications for further research regarding the viability of making consensus a stopping rule for deliberation. About the speaker Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani is currently a Senior lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon. He obtained a National Diploma (ND) and a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Mass Communication with Distinction from the Institute of Journalism, Management and Continuing Education, Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) Consult, a BA in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan, a B. Phil in Philosophy from the Pontificia Università Urbaniana Roma (Urban Pontifical University, Rome), Italy, an MA and a PhD in Philosophy from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. Awarded best graduating student at graduate and post-graduate levels, he is a member of the Nigerian Philosophical Association. He was editor of Fact Magazine and is co-founder of Teleads Career Services. Previous Next

< Back How can we improve deliberative reason? A meta-analysis of minipublic deliberation Simon Niemeyer and Francesco Veri (University of Canberra) Tue 24 November 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel. Abstract This paper investigates influences on public reasoning on political issues within deliberative minipublics. It does so via a multi-level study of 20 minipublic cases and 480 individuals, using a Deliberative Reason Index (DRI). DRI captures how deliberating groups construct a shared understanding of an issue and integrate relevant arguments into their various positions. It is consistent with deliberative ideals, versus selective reasoning pathologies such as confirmation bias. Overall, we find that minipublic deliberation results in dramatically improved reasoning. Reasoning is best facilitated by designs that focus on establishing group deliberative norms, particularly for complex issues. By contrast, processes designed to directly impact decision-making and short cut wider public discussion fare relatively poorly. The impact of demographic variables is complex, with interaction effects operating. Overall, the results are consistent with recent developments in how we understand human reasoning, and the roles of situation and emotions. They bring into question some common claims regarding deliberative design and have wider practical implications for improving public reasoning. About the speakers Simon Niemeyer is Professor and co-founder of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. His research ties together the themes of political behaviour, the public sphere and observations from deliberative minipublics, such as Citizens’ Juries, to develop insights into potential interventions and institutional settings that improve deliberation and governance. Francesco Veri is a Postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Francesco is also a member of the Lucerne Cluster for Configurational Methods (LUCCS) which regroup scholars who make major contributions to social science methodology at the crossroads between quantitative and qualitative research. Previous Next

< Back Filipe Motta Associate About Filipe Motta is Brazilian journalist and researcher. His research looks at the constraints to public debate about mining activities in Minas Gerais State, Brazil, with a broad deliberative systems perspective, examining ways in which the dichotomy between conflict and deliberative democracy can be overcome in the context of an environmental conflict.

< Back How do voters want to be represented? An investigation in how parties can strengthen democracy Annika Werner, Australian National University Tue 13 August 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract The diagnosis that large parts of democratic publics are disenchanted with political parties is wide spread. Also, that this is a problem for democracy is undeniable, given the crucial role parties play in the representative system. However, what parties can do about this is still much less clear. How should parties make representative democracy work to give it more legitimacy? Dominant democracy models assume that voters want parties to fulfil the promises of their election campaigns and that this is especially true for the party a voter supports. The congruence between voters’ policy preferences, party programs, and party behavior is argued to ensure policy responsiveness and the meaningfulness of elections. Whether voters agree with these assumptions, however, remains largely unclear. Thus, we actually have little robust knowledge about the yardstick against which political elites are judged. This article is one of the first empirical studies to investigate voter preferences regarding party behavior. It pits three ideal-type party representative styles against each other: promise-keeping, focus on public opinion, and seeking the common good. Furthermore, it tests whether voters prefer their party – over other parties – to keep their promises. Using innovative conjoint survey experiments in a most-different design – comparing Austria and Australia – this study finds that, generally, voters care least about parties keeping their promises and their preferences are unaffected by their party support. These results challenge common theoretical assumptions about the party behavior that might make democracy seem legitimate in the eyes of the people. About the speaker Dr Annika Werner is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University. Her research focuses on party behaviour, representation and public attitudes in the democracies of Europe and Oceania and has been published in journals such as the Journal of European Public Policy, Democratization, Party Politics, International Political Science Review, Representation, and Australian Journal of Political Science. Her book “International Populism: The Radical Right in the European Parliament”, co-authored with Duncan McDonnell, is forthcoming with Hurst/Oxford University Press. Annika is Steering Group member of the Manifesto Project (MARPOR, former CMP) and Co-Editor of the Australian Journal of Political Science. Previous Next

< 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.

Former PhD Student < Back Alex Lo Former PhD Student About Alex completed his dissertation at the Australian National University in association with CSIRO, and supervised by Clive Spash and John Dryzek.

< Back Tetsuki Tamura Associate About Tetsuki Tamura's work covers deliberative democracy, the welfare state and basic income, feminism, Marxist state theories, and the relationship between normative political theory and empirical analysis. His current research interests include deliberation in the intimate sphere, conditions and motivations of deliberation, and rethinking the relationship between deliberation and liberal democracy.

< 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 Democracy: Friendship in the company of strangers? Quinlan Bowman, University of Canberra Tue 4 July 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In this presentation I discuss two potentially constructive functions that the concept and practice of friendship can play in (cross-cultural) dialogues about democracy. First, I describe how appeals to friendship might help to generate greater agreement among democrats regarding the attractiveness of specifically deliberative forms of decision-making. Second, I describe how appeals to friendship might help to move those who do not begin as democrats toward a recognition of the attractiveness of democratic decision-making – indeed, as above, toward a recognition of the attractiveness of specifically deliberative forms of such decision-making. In both cases, the appeal to friendship functions as a species of immanent critique. About the speaker Dr Quinlan Bowman joined the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2016, after completing my PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Previous Next

< Back Representing the disadvantaged? Conceptions of representation in a citizens' jury in Switzerland Alexander Geisler, University of Geneva Tue 18 February 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Crackenback, NSW Abstract While referendums and initiatives are part and parcel of Swiss direct democracy, democratic innovations based on random selection remain underexplored. One such example are Citizens’ Juries assessing popular votes and informing fellow voters via a summary statement, as in the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR). Fishkin (2018, 2013) has suggested that citizens bring mostly their own interests to the table in larger types of such deliberative gatherings. Challenging this finding, evidence collected from a Swiss pilot CIR in the municipality of Sion involving twenty randomly selected voters’ points to more complex perceptions of whom panelists perceive to represent. The participants reported that they had also represented disadvantaged groups inside and outside their political jurisdiction when discussing an upcoming popular initiative on affordable housing. This suggests that conceptions of representation on part of the panelists in a minipublic and particularly in the CIR may be more complex than previously assumed. Crucially, panelists taking stances of other groups may affect existing shortcomings of inclusion and representation occurring in minipublics of small size. About the speaker Since November 2018, Alexander worked as a PhD candidate at the University of Geneva in the project “A non-populist theory of direct democracy”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation under supervision of Professor Nenad Stojanovic. The project involves conducting two CIR-like mini-public pilots in Switzerland. He earned his Master of Arts in Empirical Political and Social Research (2018) at the University of Stuttgart. After graduation, he worked at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Stuttgart as a research and teaching assistant. During this period, he was involved in two projects: creating a database to track participatory processes in the municipalities of South-West Germany and managing an online network of universities that engage in research on civic participation. His research interests are in the fields of deliberative democracy, political behaviour, the theory and practice of democratic innovations, and social cognition. Previous Next

< Back Mohammad Abdul-Hwas PhD Candidate About Mohammad’s research focuses on refugee governance and deliberative democracy. His passion to study and research a refugees’ affairs is drawn from his family’s Palestinian heritage. Before moving to Australia, Mohammad completed his undergraduate degree in business at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. He then worked at Fairfax Media and completed a Postgraduate Diploma at Massey University. In 2016, he completed his Master of Management from University of Canberra. It was while pursuing his master’s degree that Mohammad dove into the world of leadership and governance. Connecting with Syrian refugees drove Mohammad to research deliberative democracy, with the ambition to improve the experience and agency for people caught in a refugee crisis. Dissertation Mohammad’s PhD thesis is titled “The governance of refugees from a deliberative system perspective: The case of Syrian refugee crisis”. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) describes the Syrian refugee crisis as ‘the largest displacement crisis of our time’. Using a deliberative systems approach, the research demonstrates the various ways in which decisions that impact the lives of refugees are made. Deliberative system is a fitting approach to understand the relationship between vulnerable communities and decision-makers, particularly its normative emphasis on inclusiveness, authenticity, and consequentiality. Mohammad conducted eight weeks of extensive fieldwork in refugee camps and urban centres in Jordan to investigate all aspects that surround refugee’s governance and decision making. There are two key reasons for this research benefit. First, humanitarian actors hold power in managing the lives of refugees; It is worth investigating how they conduct politics, and whether their practices serve to promote decisions that are justifiable to those who will experience their impact. Second, refugee governance and deliberative democracy emerge from different traditions, these two fields are running on parallel tracks; They need to be connected to identify pathways by which refugees can gain voice and influence in shaping their future, and to investigate whether humanitarian actors can do better. PhD supervisors Nicole Curato (Primary Supervisor) Brendan McCaffrie (Secondary Supervisor) Teaching S EMESTER 2, 2023: Academic Tutor, University of Canberra Unit Title: Investigating and Explaining Society (11236.1) Organisation: Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society. Faculty of Business, Government & Law. University of Canberra, Australia. SEMESTER 2, 2023: Academic Tutor, University of Canberra Unit Title: Introduction to Public Policy (11378.1) Organisation: Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society. Faculty of Business, Government & Law. University of Canberra, Australia. SEMESTER 2, 2023: Academic Tutor-University of Canberra Accelerated Pathways program H course: Politics and Democracy (APP) (11846). Organisation: Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society. University of Canberra, Australia. SEMESTER 1, 2023: Academic Tutor-University of Canberra Unit Title: Political and Social Theory (11243.1) Organisation: Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society. Faculty of Business, Government & Law. University of Canberra, Australia. SEMESTER 2, 2022: Academic Marking-University of Canberra Unit Title: Introduction to International Relations (11238.1) Organisation: Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society. Faculty of Business, Government & Law. University of Canberra, Australia. Conference Presentations “The potential and limits of deliberative democracy in the governance of refugee crisis”. New Zealand Political Studies Association (NZPSA) Annual Conference, November 30, 2022. The University of Waikato, New Zealand (Virtual Conference). “Governance of refugee crisis from a deliberative approach: Focus on public and empowered spaces”. Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) Annual Conference, September 27, 2022. Australian National University, Australia. “Governing the Syrian refugee crisis: A deliberative assessment”. NEXT Generation Deliberation Celebration Symposium, June 10, 2021. KU Leuven University, Belgium (Virtual Conference). “The role of deliberation in governing the Syrian refugee crisis: Insights from the field”. Deliberative Democracy Seminar Series, October 6, 2020. University of Canberra, Australia. “Governing the Syrian refugee crisis: A deliberative perspective”. Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) Conference. September 18, 2020. Virtual Conference. “The role of deliberation in governance of the Syrian refugee crisis”. Deliberative Democracy Summer School. February 5, 2020. University of Canberra, Australia. Projects Mohammad is part of a global research team on the Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Among the thirty researchers from different parts of the globe, he actively participated in observing deliberative engagement processes during the plenary sessions at Global Assembly COP26. Administration Co-organizer, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance’s Book reception 2022. Co-organizer, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance’s Book Harvest 2020.

Academic Partners We uphold research excellence by collaborating with an international network of academic partners in diverse disciplines and countries. Earth System Governance John Dryzek and Jonathan Pickering are involved in the Earth System Governance project, the world’s largest network of social scientists working on global environmental governance. John and Jonathan were authors on the project’s new ten-year Science and Implementation Plan. John completed his term as a longstanding member of the project’s Scientific Steering Committee, and Jonathan joined the new Committee. Jonathan continued to co-convene the project’s working group on ecological democracy and co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning based on the group’s work. European Consortium for Political Research’s Standing Group on Democratic Innovation The Centre maintains an active presence in the activities of the European Consortium for Political Research’s Standing Group on Democratic Innovations. Together with our associates André Bächtiger (University of Stuttgart), Kimmo Grönlund (Åbo Akademi), Sofie Marien (KU Leuven), and Jane Suiter (Dublin City University), our Associate Professor Nicole Curato serves as the co-chair of the Standing Group’s Steering Committee. The standing group coordinates activities related to the study of democratic innovations in Europe, with the aim of fostering an epistemic community of scholars working towards understanding how democratic innovations can improve our politics. Global Citizens’ Assembly Consortium The consortium to organise a deliberative global citizens’ assembly on genome editing continues to gather momentum. Our partners include Missions Publiques (France and Germany), Involve (UK), Genepool Productions (Melbourne), and the University of Tasmania Centre for Law and Genetics. Partners involved in developing national deliberative processes on the same issue include researchers at Welcome Genome Campus (UK), Keele University (UK), Deakin University, Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, KU Leuven (Belgium), University of Cape Town (South Africa), Arizona State University (USA), University of British Columbia (Canada). Our Centre is also one of the founding partners of the Global Citizens’ Assembly in connection with the 26th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA) at The Ohio State University Our Connecting to Parliament project is made possible by our new collaboration with IDEA. Through Professor Michael Neblo and his team of researchers, our Centre was able to design and implement the Australian version of Connecting to Congress which aims to create authentic and actionable engagement between representatives and their constituents International Ethics Research Group   John Dryzek, Jonathan Pickering and Ana Tanasoca are members of the International Ethics Research Group convened by the University of New South Wales Canberra. The group meets regularly to discuss work-in-progress papers. Presentations by Centre members have included a paper by Jonathan on 'Ethical mapmaking: the epistemic and democratic value of normative theory in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments'. The National Science and Technology Institute for Digital Democracy The Centre collaborates with the Brazilian National Science and Technology Institute for Digital Democracy, which is multi-institutional and multidisciplinary network of research groups and laboratories from all over the world focusing on the use of digital tools to enhance democracy. We continue our joint research activities with through our associate Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Participedia Our Centre partners with the global research project, Participedia. Selen Ercan and Lucy Parry are members of the Participedia team. Lucy Parry has been providing systematic and practical information on democratic innovations across Australia. Participedia is a collaborative effort to identify, document, and learn from the hundreds of thousands of new channels of citizen involvement occurring in governments, communities, and organizations throughout the world. Participedia's crowdsourcing platform gives everyone the ability to share knowledge and information about these processes. The resulting catalogue provides the information necessary for scholars, practitioners, and members of the public to understand the development of citizen engagement and its contribution to democracy and governance. Participedia is made possible by a Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The project was founded by principal investigator Professor Mark Warren of the University of British Columbia and co-investigator Professor Archon Fung of Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Political Studies Association UK A strong connection to the PSA Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group (PDD) has been established this year, as Hans Asenbaum, a long standing PDD co-convenor joined the Centre. With 350 members, PDD is a vibrant network of scholars of deliberative democracy. The connection to PDD allows the Centre to deepen its contacts and collaborative projects with leading scholars in the UK. The PDD convenor team has put all its effort into supporting and engaging the scholarly community in these challenging times. Among the highlights were a six-part summer webinar series that showcased the current work of PDD members and a picture contest for Early Career Researchers Great Barrier Reef Futures Citizens’ Jury Funded by James Cook University (Claudia Benham, Simon Niemeyer and Hannah Barrowman) Moral Disagreements: Philosophical and Practical Implications Funded by the Australian Catholic University (Richard Rowland, Selen Ercan, David Killoren, and Lucy J Parry). Protests and Political Engagement Funded by the Federal University of Minas Gerais Grant. (Selen A. Ercan, Ricardo F. Mendonca, Umut Ozguc). Connecting to Parliament A collaboration between Centre for Deliberative democracy and Global Governance and the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability.

< Back Activist inclusion in deliberative systems Anna Drake, University of Waterloo Tue 20 April 2021 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel. Abstract Deliberative democrats speak positively of activists’ systems-wide impact. This attention to activists and, more broadly, to an expansion of deliberative democracy’s inclusive capacity, underpins much of the recent deliberative systems work, where the aim is to underscore the ways that deliberative and decision-making bodies benefit from deeper inclusion, such as paying attention to activists. These benefits include a deeper pool of knowledge, increased legitimacy, and a deepening of deliberative democracy’s democratic aspects. From this vantage point, Black Lives Matter Toronto’s sit-in during the 2016 Pride parade—and the subsequent dialogue on, and responses to, BLMTO’s demands— appears to be an excellent case to support arguments for activists’ positive contributions to, and to the inclusive potential of, deliberative systems. However, I challenge this perspective by focussing on a deeper, structural problem that challenges deliberative systems’ success stories. In the case of BLMTO and the unfolding systems-level dialogue, what started as a critique of anti-Black racism ended up as a watered-down discussion of inclusion: one that largely avoided the topic of systemic anti-Black racism and structural violence. The core problem, I argue, is due to deliberative systems bringing activism into established processes that rest on deeply-ingrained structural racism (and sexism, etc.). The inclusion framework that deliberative systems rely upon fails to address the racist balance of power. As a result, this prevents the systems-level deliberation necessary to facilitate a meaningful exchange between BLMTO activists and those who continue to benefit from strictures of white supremacy and privilege. Despite deliberative systems’ good intentions, an inclusion framework undermines core values of moral & political equality that underpin normative deliberative democratic theory. About the speaker Anna Drake is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Waterloo. She works in the area of contemporary political theory, with a focus on democratic theory and practice, intersectional feminist politics, and activism. She is the author of Activism, Inclusion, and the Challenges of Deliberative Democracy (UBC Press, 2021) and has published in a number of journals, including Contemporary Political Theory and Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. Previous Next

< Back Connecting to Congress during Covid-19: Political representation and two-way crisis communication Michael Neblo, Ohio State University Tue 25 May 2021 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Abstract As the COVID-19 crisis rapidly escalated in the United States, Congress needed to pivot from its normal representational activities to: 1) find ways to disseminate reliable information regarding the crisis, 2) find ways to gather relevant information about the rapidly evolving needs of their constituents to inform responsive legislation, and 3) encourage compliance with public health measures. We were in the field running experiments with Deliberative Town Halls (DTHs) when the pandemic hit. So we quickly adapted the structure of the standard DTH model to facilitate the kinds of interactions called for by the crisis: whereas pre-COVID-19 DTHs focused on a single issue with a single member of Congress, the COVID-19 events often featured a bipartisan pair of members, participating alongside subject matter experts. This structure vividly communicated bi-partisan messages regarding public health compliance, sent credible signals about the information being provided to constituents of both parties, and reassured them that normal partisan jousting would not interfere with the crafting policy to manage the urgent needs of the crisis. They also allowed members to gather the information necessary to develop policies that would be responsive to needs as articulated by their constituents. They also allowed constituents to express their opinions and feelings on COVID-19 related policies, Congress’s handling of the pandemic, and the personal struggles they had faced as the effects of the pandemic unfolded. N.B. – 1) This presentation is based on joint work with Abigail Kielty and Amy Lee; 2) the analyses are preliminary and largely descriptive at this point; and 3) I will begin the presentation with a more general overview of the research strategy behind the larger connecting to Congress project. About the speaker Michael Neblo is Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Philosophy, Communication, and Public Affairs & Director of the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA) at The Ohio State University. Neblo's research focuses on deliberative democracy and political psychology. His most recent book, Politics with the People: Building a Directly Representative Democracy develops and tests a new model of politics connecting citizens and elected officials to improve representative government. He has twice been invited to testify before the U.S. Congress about these findings. His first book, Deliberative Democracy between Theory and Practice cuts across the deadlock between supporters of deliberative theory and their empirical critics by focusing on the core goals of the larger deliberative political system. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in a wide range of academic journals across several fields, Neblo holds a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS) from Northwestern University. He is currently an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. Previous Next

< 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.