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< Back DELIBERATION IN TRANSITIONS: A PRACTITIONER'S REFLECTIONS FROM NEPAL AND AFGHANISTAN George Varughese, Niti Foundation Tue 5 March 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract In the last two decades Nepal and Afghanistan have undergone significant governance transitions, drafting and implementing ambitious new constitutions in the wake of civil conflict. In this talk, George Varughese will reflect on 25 years of personal involvement as a development practitioner in these countries, with an emphasis on recent Nepal experiences. While in both contexts, deliberative spaces were created to facilitate transitions in governance regimes, the subsequent constitutional and legal/regulatory scaffolding for state restructuring reflect minimal deliberation and public engagement. The formal and informal elite interests that captured these spaces continue to constrain the countries’ constitutional and democratic development in order to maintain impunity and extract rent. In this light, the talk will highlight challenges in supporting the publicness of policy making in Nepal, focusing on the need for the practical choices in transforming the country’s political and legal institutions, which is necessary for durable deliberative discourse to inhere in public life. About the speaker George Varughese is Senior Advisor for Niti Foundation and convenes its Strategic Advisory Group that makes broadly available analysis, guidance, and recommendations for implementing federalism in Nepal. George has 24 years of experience in international development and academia, with expertise in thought leadership/facilitation in governance with a political economy & conflict specialization and skills in strategic analysis & advice, fundraising, program design & delivery, and policy development & navigation. Most recently, George represented The Asia Foundation in Nepal (2009-2018) and Afghanistan (2005-2009), managing programs on transitional political processes and constitutional development; capacity-building initiatives in the center of government; subnational governance; conflict-transformation and peace building; women’s advancement & security; and public education and discourse on democratic political processes and rule of law. He has also provided technical assistance in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Timor Leste. George is interested and involved in the institutional design of partnerships between local communities, private sector, and government officials, particularly on post-conflict development management, peacebuilding, local governance, and civic engagement. Most recently, George delivered the 2017 Howard Baker Distinguished Lecture in International Security and Development at the University of Tennessee and published “Development aid architecture and the conditions for peacebuilding and human rights in conflict-affected areas: Does the framework fit the purpose?” in Journal of Human Rights Practice (Special Issue on Human Rights and Peacebuilding, 2017, pp. 1-12). He was 2015-16 Excellence Chair and Professor in Global and Area Studies at the University of Wyoming, 2010 Senior Visiting Fellow of The Australian National University's Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, and 2008 Senior International Fellow of the City University of New York's Graduate Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society. He holds a Joint Ph.D. in Political Science & Public Administration from Indiana University, Bloomington. Previous Next

< Back Lucy J. Parry Senior Research Associate About Lucy J. Parry is a Research Associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. She is currently the project manager of Monitoring Deliberative Integrity in Australia and a collaborator on the Australian citizens’ jury on genome editing . Prior to her current role she was a Research Associate with Participedia and has documented hundreds of cases and methods of democratic innovation around the world on their crowd-sourced, open access database. Her research interests include deliberative systems, deliberative mini-publics and democratic innovations, and animal ethics. Uniting these areas is a commitment to bring deliberative theory and practice together, along with her methodological expertise in Q Methodology. She has authored a number of publications and presented her research at international conferences in Australia, Austria and the U.K. Her current research explores the impacts and integrity of deliberative mini-publics. Key Publications Jean-Paul Gagnon, Paul Emiljanowicz, Lucy J. Parry, Bomikazi Zeka, Nick Vlahos, Angela Tan-Kantor, Alex Prior, Adrian Bua, and John Hawkins (2022) TaxTrack’: Introducing a Democratic Innovation for Taxation. Australasian Parliamentary Review. Parry, L.J., Asenbaum, H. & Ercan, S.E. (2021). Democracy in flux: a systemic view on the impact of COVID-19. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 15(2): 197-205. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-09-2020-0269 Parry, L.J. & Ercan, S.A. (2020). Using Participedia to study the impacts of mini-publics. Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance Working Paper 2020/02 . Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Parry, L.J., Alver, J. & Thompson, N. (2019). Democratic Innovation in Australasia. In Elstub, S. & Escobar, O. (2019). Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance. Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786433862 Parry, L.J. (2019). Discourses on foxhunting in the public sphere: a Q methodological study. British Politics. 14, 290-310. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-018-0089-5 Parry, L.J. (2017). Don’t put all your speech-acts in one basket: situating animal activism in the deliberative system. Environmental Values, 26(4), 437-455. https://doi.org/10.3197/096327117X14976900137340 Full list of publications available in GoogleScholar . Teaching Tutor, Language Center, Webster Vienna Private University. 2017-2021. Tutor, Public Policy and Administration, Faculty of Business, Government and Law, University of Canberra. 2017. Graduate Teaching Assistant, History of Western Political Thought, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield. 2014-2016. Administration Co-editor of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 2023-present. Editor of the Deliberative Democracy Digest, 2023-present. Co-editor, BroadAgenda, 50/50 by 2030 Foundation, 2017. Public Engagement Parry, L.J., Asenbaum, H., and Ercan, S. A. (2021) Recipes for democratic participation during the pandemic: from anti-lockdown protest to a participatory system. Agora . 15 March. Parry, L.J. (2017) #MeToo and Me: the transformative power in numbers, BroadAgenda , 20 October. Curato, N. and Parry, L.J. (2017) Deliberative Democracy must rise to the threat of populist rhetoric. The Conversation . 7 June.

< Back HOW DO SETTLER-COLONIAL INEQUALITIES SHAPE POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR AND COMMUNICATION IN ANGLO-DEMOCRACIES? About this event Social structure becomes internalized as cognitive dispositions that shape social action (Bourdieu 2000). In settler-colonial societies, how do White settlers’ cognitive dispositions—specifically, White settlers’ racial attitudes—shape political behaviour and communication? Can we design interventions so that political discourse (talking through disagreement) improves White settlers’ outgroup attitudes? In this talk, Professor Edana Beauvais gives an overview of her research on the political consequences of White settlers’ racial attitudes. She also discusses the results of an experiment that varied communication style (rational-legal speech versus personal storytelling) to see if personal storytelling could improve White settlers’ attitudes toward Indigenous peoples. Edana Beauvais is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University. She is the Chair of the Participedia Democracy and Digital Communication Cluster and the President of the American Political Science Association’s Democratic Innovations Group. Before joining SFU, she held a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University, a Visiting Democracy Fellowship at the Ash Center, Harvard University, and a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, McGill University. She is interested in the way inequalities shape communication and action, producing unequal political influence between different social group members. Seminar series convenors: Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal. Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

< Back CENTRE MEETS CENTRE: MARGEM AT UFMG In this seminar, Ricardo Mendonça along with other MARGEM members will present the current research of the research group MARGEM. About this event In this seminar, Ricardo Mendonça along with other MARGEM members will present the current research of the research group MARGEM. The Research Group on Democracy and Justice (MARGEM) carries out interdisciplinary investigations aimed at deepening democracy and at comprehending the social struggles that are intrinsic to it. The group is based at UFMG, Brazil, and works with topics at the intersection of democratic theories, political communication, contentious politics and theories of justice. MARGEM is strongly influenced by critical theory informed by pragmatism, employing relational perspectives to make sense of political phenomena. Current projects developed within the group address a wide range of topics including algorithms, social media, disinformation, uberization, protests, populism, visual narratives, gender, race and democratic innovations. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

< Back UPCOMING: FACILITATION OF DELIBERATION IN THE CLASSROOM: THE INTERPLAY OF TECHNIQUE AND DESIGN TO MAKE SPACE FOR DEMOCRACY ABSTRACT Widespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citizenship and policy making in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment, and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In school deliberation, as in other settings, a key and sometimes neglected element of high-quality deliberation is facilitation. Facilitation can help to establish and maintain deliberative norms, assist participants to deliberate productively and enable collective goals. By participating in facilitated deliberation, students can develop awareness, skills and voice that empower them to engage with democracy, in the school and beyond. This article draws on our experience as scholar/practitioners running a Deliberation in Schools program in Australia to explore challenges and strategies for deliberative facilitation. The challenges we discuss are power, inequality, diversity of expression and knowledge, and disagreement and these are discussed in the general context of inclusiveness. We highlight two facets of deliberative facilitation – technique and design – which are important for dealing with these challenges and increasing inclusion in school deliberation and in democratic deliberation more generally. BIO Wendy Russel, Kei Nishiyama, and Pierrick Chalaye share an interest in deliberative education and have a range of expertise in this area: Wendy as a deliberation practitioner in schools, Kei as a deliberation practitioner and facilitator, and Pierrick as a former high school teacher. They worked together on the Deliberation in Schools project in the Australian Capital Territory, on which this seminar is based. Wendy is a research fellow in the School of Engineering, Australian National University, an associate of the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, ANU and an associate of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra. She is an engagement practitioner and Director of Double Arrow Consulting, a business specialising in deliberative engagement. Wendy identifies as a transdisciplinary pracademic and lacks respect for boundaries. Kei is an assistant professor of policy studies at Doshisha University, Japan. Kei has a PhD from the University of Canberra, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Kei studies children, education and democracy from a deliberative point of view. Pierrick is a research fellow in the School of Engineering, Australian National University. He has a PhD in comparative environmental politics/policy from the University of Canberra, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. His research interests are energy and environmental politics/policy, deliberative democratic theory and qualitative research methods. Previous Next

< Back DECOLONIZING DELIBERATIVE MINI-PUBLICS Deliberative mini-publics are portrayed as empowering spaces but whom are these spaces empowering? About this event Deliberative mini-publics are portrayed as empowering spaces where a group of ordinary citizens representative of the wider population can reach considered judgment and provide recommendations to public authorities. These portrayals, however, need to be interrogated. For whom are these spaces empowering? Do all citizens (or co-legislators) hold equal power to legitimize or endorse a decision or institution? Whose considered judgments and performances are considered legitimate by public authorities and process experts? Which voices and bodies are systematically rendered unheard and invisible as these processes claim to champion diversity? This paper answers these questions by drawing on various perspectives of decolonial theory. It argues that deliberative mini-publics, in their current formulation and scope, are complicit to maintaining the privileges of White western democratic theory and practice, as well as the dependencies to systems of domination, racialization and exploitation. It examines the scope and design features of mini-publics – from random selection to facilitation to presentation of expert evidence – and demonstrates how these features, despite good intentions, further entrench dominant epistemologies that maintain today’s global racial order. The paper concludes by exploring the debate on the extent to which this democratic innovation can be reformed or ‘decolonized’ and reflects on the role of scholars and practitioners of public deliberation in decolonizing democracy. Azucena Morán is a Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS Potsdam), PhD candidate at the University of Potsdam, and member of the ECPR Standing Group on Democratic Innovations. Her transdisciplinary work explores deliberative and participatory responses to planetary challenges and is rooted in literatures and theories of decoloniality, political oppression/liberation, and governance in areas of limited statehood. She has previously worked at Public Agenda, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, UNHCR, and the news media. Nicole Curato is a Professor of Political Sociology at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance the University of Canberra. Her work examines how democratic innovations can take root in the aftermath of tragedies, focusing on cases of disasters, armed conflict and urban crime. She has published three books and over 50 journal articles and book chapters on deliberative democracy, Philippine politics, and research methods. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

< Back Cultivating a deliberative stance Simon Niemeyer, University of Canberra Tue 7 March 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract There has been much focus in deliberative democracy on procedures that may be more or less deliberative, which may also bear some relationship to the deliberativeness of an outcome or decision. More recently the idea of dispositional state has gained attention, initially through the idea of ‘deliberative stance’ proposed by Owen and Smith. The idea of a deliberative stance potentially fills important gaps in the theory of deliberation, where differences in stance confound the relationship between procedure and outcome. If it can be said that an individual as adopted a more deliberative stance during a deliberative encounter, then we might expect difference in outcome compared to another who has not, even though all other procedural observations may be the same — although it is also likely that stance and procedure are also related. The role of inducing a deliberative stance was tested as part of a mini public field experiment in 2016 in Sweden on the issue of begging by internal EU migrants. Two groups participated in a three-day process, one of which undertook pre-deliberative group exercises aimed at inducing deliberative norms, or a ‘deliberative stance’. The second group did not undertake any group exercises, but instead began the process with a briefing about the ideals of deliberation. Both groups then participated in the same process. The differences in outcome between the two groups were analysed in terms of conventional preference transformation, as well as the intersubjective relationship between values, beliefs — or ‘reasons’ — and policy choices (intersubjective consistency). The implications of the results for deliberative theory and practice are discussed. This paper is co-authored with Julia Jennstål, Uppsala University About the speaker Simon Niemeyer is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow whose research covers the broad fields of deliberative democracy and environmental governance, particularly in respect to climate change. His focus is on the forces that shape public opinion and how this can be improved so that the expressed preference of the public better reflects their collective long-term interests. This has guided his research in the direction of exploring the nature of preference change during deliberative minipublics, which is now moving into a phase of understanding the possibility for deliberative preference formation in mass public settings and the institutional features that best facilitate deliberative democratic governance. Previous Next

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back UC Postdoctoral Fellow wins 2022 Rising Star Award from leading European political science association 6 Feb 2023 We are thrilled that our Centre's Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Hans Asenbaum, has received the ECPR Rising Star Award for his achievements as an early career researcher. This award is presented annually, through the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). ECPR, of which the University of Canberra is a member institution, is the leading European academic association with a mission to advance political science, Recipients of the award are given the opportunity to develop their networks and skills in the field of politics and international relations. “For me, the award shows that critical voices are important, are heard and are appreciated in our society – I've always tried to make a case for inclusion and for sensitivity to our identities,” Dr Asenbaum said. Read more

< Back Diasporas involved: How Jewish diaspora is involved in constitutional deliberations in Israel Shay Keinan, Australian National University Tue 2 June 2015 11:00am - 12:00pm Fishbowl, Building 24, University of Canberra Abstract Diaspora studies has emerged as a distinct academic field in recent years, focusing on the relationship between dispersed ethnic populations and their countries of origin (“kin-states”). Democratic states face increasing challenges when interacting with these often large and influential groups: How and to what extent can a democracy accommodate the interests of non-citizens who nevertheless maintain a strong connection to the nation kin-state? In this paper I suggest that deliberative democratic theory can be useful in addressing such issues of diaspora involvement. Deliberative processes can enable people in the diaspora to affect the shaping of laws in their kin-states in ways other than voting. One way this can be done is by allowing diaspora representatives to participate in deliberations that take place in Constitutional Courts regarding constitutional matters that are of special relevance to diaspora populations. For concrete examples, I refer to illustrative cases from the Israeli Supreme Court, in which diaspora groups have been involved in deliberations regarding constitutional questions with direct impacts on the Jewish diaspora, their relationship with the state of Israel and the rights of Israel’s minorities. About the speaker Shay Keinan is a PhD candidate at the ANU College of Law, he holds an LLB degree (magna cum laude) from Tel Aviv University and an LLM degree from the University of Hamburg, Bologna University and the University of Manchester. Previous Next

< Back Expressive deliberation Jensen Sass, University of Canberra Tue 4 July 2017 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Political theorists routinely distinguish between deliberative and non-deliberative political practices, but they have seldom examined the basis of this distinction - it is largely taken as self-evident, i.e., there are deliberative practices (which approximate the deliberative ideal) and that there are non-deliberative practices, including voting but also "everyday deeds", "direct action", and the repertoires of social movements. In this paper I suggest that there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between deliberative and non-deliberative practices, but that it should be drawn differently. Many of the practices usually considered non-deliberative are in fact deliberative but in an expressive sense. Expressive deliberation relays normative and epistemic claims in an indirect and sometimes oblique fashion. About the speaker Jensen Sass is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His work at the Centre examines the way social norms and cultural meanings shape the character of deliberation within different contexts. In addition to his work on deliberation, Jensen is undertaking a long-term project on the history of the Monsanto Company and its role in the development of agricultural biotechnology. Previous Next

< Back Designing permanent deliberative democracy: The Ostbelgien Modell in Belgium Min Reuchamps, Catholic University of Louvain Tue 18 June 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Around the world, deliberative democracy is on the rise and is being implemented in real politics. In Belgium, the G1000, a citizen-led experiment, set deliberative democracy on the political agenda. In this wake, all parliaments of the country have initiated deliberative mini-publics. More recently the Ostbelgien modell was fostered; that is the Parliament of the German-speaking community has enacted a permanent system of deliberative democracy that will start in September 2019: a randomly selected body of 24 citizens will work next to the existing elected parliament made of 25 MPs. These democratic innovations set the pace for a renewal of democratic dynamics in practice. About the speaker Min Reuchamps is Professor of Political Science at the Université catholique de Louvain. He graduated from the Université de Liège and from Boston University. His teaching and research interests are federalism and multi-level governance, democracy and its different dimensions, relations between language(s) and politics and in particular the role of metaphors, as well as participatory and deliberative methods. He has published a dozen books on these topics and his works have appeared in several international journals. He recently co-authored a book on the G1000 experiment ( https://www.crcpress.com/The-Legitimacy-of-Citizen-led-Deliberative-Democracy-The-G1000-in-Belgium/Caluwaerts-Reuchamps/p/book/9781138281943 ) and his forthcoming book is an edited volume on the variation of political metaphors. Previous Next

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

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

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back 2023 APSA Lifetime Achievement Award 8 Dec 2023 Distinguished Professor John Dryzek has received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) during the award ceremony held at the University of Sydney on 29 November 2023. This award is given in recognition of John’s exceptional achievements and contributions to political studies, as well as his outstanding service to APSA and the political science community more broadly.

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 Institutionalising deliberative mini-publics in public decision-making Claudia Chwalisz, OECD Tue 3 December 2019 11:00am-12pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract A forthcoming OECD study of over to 700 deliberative mini-publics raises new questions about their institutionalisation and the future of democracy. While there has been a proliferation of deliberative processes initiated by public authorities for decision-making over the past few decades, these have tended to remain ad hoc and dependent on political will. The remit of most deliberative processes has also been project-specific and there are few examples where citizens are able to set the agenda or define the problem. Their impact on improving citizens’ sense of agency and efficacy and increasing levels of trust, has thus remain limited. Recently, there has been some experimentation underway that aims to overcome some of these challenges, focused on embedding deliberative processes into public decision-making procedures. This seminar will explore two questions around this theme: why institutionalise, and what are the different forms of institutionalisation that are already happening, and that we could envisage? Previous Next

< Back Debashish Munshi Associate About Dr Debashish Munshi is Professor of Management Communication at the University of Waikato. His interdisciplinary research, informed by critical theory and postcolonial theory, focuses on the intersections among issues of communication, diversity, ethics, sustainability, and science and technology.

< Back DECOLONIZING DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY Deliberative democracy advances an emancipatory project but to unfold its full potential, it needs to face colonial traces within. About this event Deliberative democracy advances an emancipatory project of inclusion, equality, and freedom. Yet these ideals have been produced in a particular economic and cultural context. Emerging out of the humanist Enlightenment tradition and inspired by linguistic and critical theories, deliberative democracy is deeply rooted in Western academia. This also means that despite its emancipatory impetus, it emerged in a context marked by colonial thinking. In this presentation, Mendonça and Asenbaum argue that if deliberative democracy is to unfold its full democratic potential, it needs to face the colonial traces it may carry within it. The presentation proposes six moves towards decolonizing deliberative democracy. In order not to remain in the a purely negative, deconstructive impetus of decolonization, we also want to sketch a positive, reconstructive way forward. Hence, the first three moves we are proposing are deconstructive and aim at deepening critical reflection while the other three moves mark a concrete starting point for a decolonial reconstruction of deliberative democracy: (1) the acknowledgement of the violence often hidden by the narrative of modernity, (2) the recognition of the epistemic asymmetries within the knowledge production of deliberative democracy, (3) the reflection on the colonial drive observable in current approaches to democratic innovations, (4) centring on social injustices cutting across democracies, (5) looking to the Global South in an actual dialogue, (6) including marginalized groups and people outside academia into the theorizing process. Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça is an Associate Professor at the Political Science Department, Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). He is the coordinator of MARGEM (Research Group on Democracy and Justice) and is the Director of International Cooperation of the Brazilian National Institute for Digital Democracy and of the Brazilian Political Science Association. He is also a CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) Researcher. Ricardo Mendonça works with democratic theory, critical theory, contentious politics, and political communication. He has recently published in Policy Studies, Constellations, Political Studies, Critical Policy Studies, Policy & Society, Democratic Theory, and several Brazilian journals. He is one of the editors of Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice (with S. Elstub and S. Ercan, Routledge, 2018), Introdução à Teoria Democrática (with E. Cunha, Editora UFMG, 2018), Deliberação on-line no Brasil (with R. Sampaio and S. Barros, EDUFBA, 2016) and Democracia Digital: Publicidade, instituic?o?es e confronto poli?tico (with M. Pereira and F. Filgueiras, Editora UFMG, 2016). Hans Asenbaum is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. He holds a PhD from the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London and is a co-convener of the Participatory and Deliberative Democracy specialist group of the Political Studies Association (PSA). His research interests include identity and inclusion in new participatory spaces, digital politics, and theories of radical democracy. Hans’ work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Political Studies, New Media & Society, and Politics & Gender. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next

< 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 CENTRE MEETS CENTRE: PARTICIPEDIA AND CDDGG WITH BONNY IBHAWOH Participedia is a global network working on public participation and democratic innovations. About this event Participedia is a global network of researchers, educators, practitioners, and policymakers working on public participation and democratic innovations. The network communicates knowledge of democratic innovations to defend, expand and deepen civic inclusion and democratic governance. It comprises 63 researchers from 22 universities and 21 organizations across 16 countries. Participedia.net has documented over 3,000 cases, methods and organizations on public participation and democratic innovation in 137 countries. Bonny Ibhawoh (M.A. Ibadan; Ph.D Dalhousie) teaches Global Human Rights History and African History in the Department of History and the Centre for Peace Studies. He also teaches in the McMaster Arts & Science Program and the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition. He is the Director of the McMaster Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice. He is the Project Director of Participedia and the Confronting Atrocity Project. He has taught in universities in Africa, Europe and North America. Previously, he was professor at Brock University, Canada; professor in the Department of Political Science at University of North Carolina at Asheville; Human Rights Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, New York; Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen and Associate Member of the Centre for African Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He was Visiting Professor of Human Rights at The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, University of Texas at Austin. He has also taught at Ambrose Alli University, Covenant University, and the University of Lagos. Dr Ibhawoh currently chairs the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development. His research interests are global human rights, peace/conflict studies, legal and imperial history. His articles on these themes have appeared in historical and interdisciplinary journals – Human Rights Quarterly, Journal of Human Rights Practice, The Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, the Journal of Global History, and Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology (Journal of the American Psychological Association). He is the author of Human Rights in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018); Imperial Justice (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Imperialism and Human Rights (SUNY Press, 2007) [named Choice Outstanding Academic Title]. Dr. Ibhawoh is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a recipient of the McMaster Student Union Teaching Award and the Nelson Mandela Distinguished Africanist Award. Seminar series convenors Hans Asenbaum and Sahana Sehgal . Please register via Eventbrite . Previous Next