Search Results

< Back Co-producing deliberative space: Reflections from city level water forum initiatives in India and Nepal Hemant R Ojha, University of Canberra Tue 17 November 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel . Abstract There is now an increasing level of endorsement of the deliberative approach to governance, bolstered by evidence of benefits in legitimacy, inclusion, social learning, and even the quality of governance outcomes. In the Global South, however, entrenched power asymmetries and political cultures that tend to ignore, if not actively suppress, the practice of deliberation in political decision making continue to challenge efforts to improve deliberation in governance. In this paper, I reflect on some recent and ongoing action research initiatives supporting urban water forums in four cities in India and Nepal. Locally engaged research team partnered with academic research groups from Europe and Australia to design and test urban water forums as an experiment to expand deliberative space on issues related to water management, access, and resilience to climate change. The forums were co-organised by local research groups and city level governments, inviting representatives of all major social groups that have an interest in or are concerned with the problems of water in the city. Over a period of five years, these experiments show that locally engaged research practice can stimulate open dialogues, self-reflections (especially among the powerful groups), system-wide collective thinking, and an appreciation of the longer-term environmental risks in city level planning and decision making. However, seeing through the lens of co-production, these gains in deliberation that emerged in the context of transnational research partnership are less likely to effect new modes of co-production in governance, without larger, deeper and system-wide processes of change and transformation. This experience suggests that small-scale innovations in deliberation can meet co-production limit but can still show directionality and confidence in larger and deeper changes in the system. About the speaker Hermant R Ojha is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Center for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance and Senior Policy Advisor at the Institute for Study and Development Worldwide (IFSD) in Sydney. Previous Next

Former PhD student < Back Jonathan Kuyper Former PhD student About Jonathan Kuyper is a political theorist and international relations scholar working mainly with democratic theory, with a special focus on deliberative democracy. He is interested in how democratic theory can be employed to understand changes in domestic politics brought about by globalization, as well as offers ways to respond to these changes.

< Back The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy Edited by Andre Bächtiger, John S. Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge, and Mark Warren 2018 , Oxford University Press Summary Deliberative democracy has been the main game in contemporary political theory for two decades and has grown enormously in size and importance in political science and many other disciplines, and in political practice. The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy takes stock of deliberative democracy as a research field, as well as exploring and creating links with multiple disciplines and policy practice around the globe. It provides a concise history of deliberative ideals in political thought while also discussing their philosophical origins. It locates deliberation in a political system with different spaces, publics, and venues, including parliament and courts but also governance networks, protests, mini-publics, old and new media, and everyday talk. It documents the intersections of deliberative ideals with contemporary political theory, involving epistemology, representation, constitutionalism, justice, and multiculturalism. It explores the intersections of deliberative democracy with major research fields in the social sciences and law, including social and rational choice theory, communications, psychology, sociology, international relations, framing approaches, policy analysis, planning, democratization, and methodology. It engages with practical applications, mapping deliberation as a reform movement and as a device for conflict resolution. It documents the practice and study of deliberative democracy around the world, in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and global governance. And it provides reflections on the field by pioneering thinkers. Read more Previous Next

< Back Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice Edited By Stephen Elstub, Selen A. Ercan, and Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça 2018 , Routledge Summary Deliberative democracy is an approach to democracy that requires collective decision-making to be preceded by reasoned, inclusive, and respectful debate for it to be legitimate. It has become an increasingly dominant approach to democracy over the last few decades. In recent years, there has been a particular focus on ‘deliberative systems.’ A systemic approach to deliberative democracy opens up a new way of thinking about public deliberation in both theory and practice. It suggests understanding deliberation as a communicative activity that occurs in a diversity of spaces, and emphasizes the need for interconnection between these spaces. It offers promising solutions to some of the long-standing theoretical issues in the deliberative democracy literature such as legitimation, inclusion, representation, as well as the interaction and interconnection between public opinion formation and decision-making sites more generally. The deliberative systems approach also offers a new way of conceptualizing and studying the practice of deliberation in contemporary democracies. Despite its conceptual and practical appeal, the concept of deliberative systems also entails potential problems and raises several important questions. These include the relationship with the parts and the whole of the deliberative system, the prospects of its institutionalization, and various difficulties related to its empirical analysis. The deliberative systems approach therefore requires greater theoretical critical scrutiny, and empirical investigation. This book contributes to this endeavour by bringing together cutting edge research on the theory and practice of deliberative systems. It will identify the key challenges against the concept to enhance understanding of both its prospects and problems promoting its refinement accordingly. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Critical Policy Studies. Read more Previous Next

< Back Chris Brookhouse Honours Student About Chris is an honours student at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Prior to joining the centre he completed a Bachelor of Science (Psychology). His interests include neurodiverse and queer theory, disability studies and mad studies. He has worked for many years in the community sector, working as a disability, aged and palliative care worker. He also runs his own business connecting neurodivergent NDIS participants to appropriate services that meet their needs. Honours supervisors Hans Asenbaum Adele Webb

< Back Exploring injustice and the common good in local-scale biosafety deliberations in Costa Rica Sergio Guillen, Australian National University Tue 5 August 2014 11:00am - 12:00pm Fishbowl, Building 24, University of Canberra Abstract I present the rationale and methodology for a study of two elements involved in local-level public deliberation about genetically modified crops in Costa Rica. The first of these elements concerns injustice frames, an aspect of issue framing that entails a sense of outrage towards particular institutions or individuals on whom significant blame is laid for the grievances that spark collective action (Gamson, 1992; Johnston & Noakes, 2005). The second element relates to common-good orientation, which constitutes a central normative ideal of deliberative democracy, through which participants search for “a point of commonality to serve as the foundation for legitimate norms” (Chambers, 1996, p. 103). Both of these aspects continue to fuel important debates in the theoretical and empirical study of deliberative democracy. With regard to injustice frames, these are regarded, from a social movement perspective, as essential for driving collective action, which in turn nurtures discursive contestation in the public sphere, something highly valued by critical deliberative democrats (Dryzek, 2000; Rostboll, 2008). However, from a perspective of ideal deliberation, frames are related to aspects of symbolic manipulation that can distort the public will (Niemeyer, 2011) and hinder the type of reciprocal and reflexive exchange desirable in deliberation, by inducing a dismissal or committed opposition to the perspectives of others (Calvert & Warren, forthcoming). As for common good orientation, there has been a strong debate regarding its implications for the role and admissibility of self-interest in deliberation (Mansbridge, et al., 2010; Steiner, 2012). Moreover, a tension exists between both elements, since a greater prevalence of injustice frames can generate greater reluctance to explore a shared understanding of the public good with those blamed for the injustice. I argue that an interpretative approach can help understand how a widespread grassroots movement opposing the cultivation of genetically modified crops in Costa Rica has incorporated injustice frames into its approach to claim spaces in local environmental governance, and how the use of these frames has affected the orientation towards generalizable interests in public deliberations in community organizing settings and in municipal hearings. I present the strengths and limitations of the approach and connect it to a broader research project to explore the effects on deliberative quality of grassroots environmental collective action in Costa Rica. About the speaker Sergio Guillen is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, and a visiting Ph.D. student at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Between 2008 and 2013 he worked as Senior Specialist in Social Dialogue at the Foundation for Peace and Democracy (FUNPADEM) and as trans-boundary water governance consultant for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Costa Rica and Central America. He holds a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Carleton University (Canada), a Graduate Certificate in Natural Resources and Organization Management from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (United States), and an M.A. in Environmental Security and Peace from the UN-affiliated University for Peace (Costa Rica) Previous Next

Former PhD Student < Back Andrea Felicetti Former PhD Student About Andrea Felicetti's current research analyses engagement in social movements and civil society from a deliberative democratic perspective. He is also working on public deliberation, deliberative theory and the historical investigation of participatory processes.

< Back Deliberation in an age of (un)civil resistance William Smith, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Tue 15 September 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel. Abstract Richard Spencer, an influential ‘Alt-Right’ provocateur, was punched in the face while giving an interview on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as United States president. The assailant was affiliated with ‘Antifa’, an activist network committed to combatting the rise of far-right movements through confrontational and often violent means. Antifa are emblematic of a wave of movements whose tactics and conduct cannot be subsumed under the traditional category of nonviolent civil disobedience. There has, concurrently, been a surge of interest among political philosophers on the idea of ‘uncivil disobedience’, with a range of theorists converging on the view that there is often no compelling rationale for limiting dissent to the nonviolent repertoire associated with civil disobedience. This paper takes these political and theoretical developments as a catalyst for reconsidering deliberative democratic approaches to activism and protest. It argues that the tendency to frame protest through the catch-all category of ‘non-deliberative’ behavior elides the important distinction between civil and uncivil disobedience, treating as analogous forms of conduct that are quite different in terms of their potential consequences and their ethical complexion. The paper focuses in particular on the difficult case of violence, exploring the normative scope for deliberative theorists to treat it as a potentially legitimate mode of uncivil resistance. About the speaker William Smith is Associate Professor in Government and Public Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He works in the field of contemporary political theory, with a particular focus on civil disobedience, deliberative democracy and international political thought. He is author of Civil Disobedience and Deliberative Democracy (Routledge 2013) and has published in a wide range of international journals, including Ethics & International Affairs, The Journal of Political Philosophy, and Political Studies. Previous Next

< Back Deliberation and media policy studies: Towards a deliberative policy ecology approach Preeti Raghunath, The Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC), Pune, India Tue 20 October 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Abstract The study of deliberative democracy has received great impetus in Political Science and associated fields of Political Philosophy and Environmental Policy Studies. My engagement with literature on deliberative democracy comes from my grounding in Critical Media Policy Studies and Habermasian thought. Drawing on theoretical literature and empirical ethnographic fieldwork conducted in four countries of South Asia, and through the use of Grounded Theory, I present the building of the Deliberative Policy Ecology (DPE) Approach to the study of media policies and policymaking in South Asia. About the speaker Preeti Raghunath is an Assistant Professor at the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC), Pune, India. Her research and praxis are in the realm of critical media policy studies in South Asia. She is particularly interested in pushing the epistemological contours of the area from the Global South. She is the author of 'Community Radio Policies in South Asia: A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach', published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. She serves as a Vice-Chair of the Global Media Policy Working Group of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Previous Next

< Back Mediating the national conversation: Journalism and the Child Abuse Royal Commission 2013-17 Tue 12 May 2020 Kerry McCallum, University of Canberra 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube channel. Abstract Royal Commissions represent an opportunity for national-level reflection, truth-seeking and public discussion. While at times politically motivated, they often become a touchstone of national debate, a mediated ‘critical conversation’. Media and journalism play a central role in this process, but to date there has been little academic research on the role of media in commissions of inquiry. This presentation introduces the Breaking Silences project that is investigating the role of media, journalism and social media activism in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013-17). I will explore the interplay between the Child Abuse Royal Commission’s media-related practices, news media reporting, and survivor groups digital media use in pursuing justice and redress for the victims of child sexual abuse through the inquiry process. Drawing on a critical listening framework I ask: whose voices were heard in the Royal Commission process, which institutions got the most attention, and whose voices were overshadowed in the mediation of the inquiry? About the speaker Kerry McCallum is Professor of Communication and Media Studies, and Director of the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra. Her research in Political Communication focuses on the relationships between a changing media and Australian social policy. Kerry has been the recipient of four Australian Research Council grants and is currently lead CI on the Breaking Silences: Media and the Child Abuse Royal Commission (DP190101282) project. She is author (with L. Waller) of The Dynamics of News and Indigenous Policy in Australia, Intellect, 2017). Previous Next

< Back Madeleine Egan PhD Candidate About Madeleine is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her research focusses on informal participation in constitution-making. Prior to beginning graduate studies, Madeleine worked in community engagement for local government and non-profit organisations, as well as in communications, community organising and campaigns for environmental and social justice. Dissertation Madeleine’s PhD research explores mass democracy in deliberative constitution-making. Recent constituent processes in Chile (2019 - ) and Iceland ( 2008 - ) reflect an international trend towards more participatory constitution-making. For deliberative democratic theory, these cases raise long-standing questions about the relationship between discursive law-making and mass democracy—realistically, how can all subjects be authors of the law? Madeleine’s research combines normative theory with empirical research, to investigate how deliberation in the public sphere shapes constitution-making in practice. Conference Presentations Social movements as catalysts for deliberative constitution-making, Political Studies Association (PSA) Annual Conference. March 29, 2020. Virtual Conference. Constitution-making and the role of informal participation in the public sphere, Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) Annual Conference. November 30, 2023. Sydney. PhD supervisors John Dryzek (Primary Supervisor) Selen Ercan (Secondary Supervisor) Ron Levy (Advisor) Teaching Tutor, Political and Social Theory. 2020. Tutor, Co-Design and Deliberative Engagement. 2024. Administration Co-Editor, Working Paper Series, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance Scholarships and Prizes Deliberative Democracy Scholarship, University of Canberra, 2020 Percival Serle Prize, University of Melbourne, 2017 Dwight Final Examination Prize, University of Melbourne, 2017

< Back End of Year Report 2024 Center 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

< 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

Latest News - Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance < Back 2023 APSA Lifetime Achievement Award 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.

Former PhD student < Back Penelope Marshall Former PhD student About Penelope completed her dissertation entitled ‘Playing for Sheep Stations: A Discourse Analysis of Wild Dog Management and Control in New South Wales, Australia’ in 2013 at the Australian National University.

< Back Micaela Wolf Honours Student About About Micaela is an Honours Student at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She is dedicated to understanding and strengthening democratic resilience in an era of political polarisation. Her research focuses on the interplay between media, democracy, and extremist ideologies in contemporary Australia. She examines the role of alternative media reporting in amplifying exclusionary politics and ideologies while exploring the importance of media literacy in upholding democratic values against manipulated information. Before commencing her Honours, Micaela completed a Bachelor of Politics and International Relations with a Specialist Major in International Relations and National Security at the University of Canberra. This background, combined with her diverse professional experience across NGO campaigning, renewable energy advocacy, and business development, gives Micaela a unique perspective on the challenges facing modern democracies. Micaela’s research interests stem from her commitment to healthy democracy and positive social change. She is especially interested in the delicate balance between upholding free speech and addressing the challenges of extremist rhetoric in democratic societies. Ultimately, Micaela seeks to help rebuild trust in democratic institutions and inspire better public dialogue. Honours Supervisor Jordan McSwiney

< Back Towards a new deliberative quality: from unitary and idealized to pluralistic and re-politicized visions of deliberative democracy André Bächtiger, University of Stuttgart Tue 19 February 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm The Dryzek Room, Building 22, University of Canberra Abstract Many researchers and practitioners have understood (and understand) deliberation as a fixed and unitary construct that quasi-automatically supports and strengthens democracy. Yet, empirical research shows that the classic deliberative core can collide with democratic goods. Moreover, deliberative scholars have long focused on “ideal” institutions, such as deliberative mini-publics or institutional settings in politics that promote classic deliberative ideals. But “ideal” institutions in politics reduce deliberation to a rare event; and a focus on deliberative mini-publics means focusing on events that rarely lead to consequential outcomes in the polity and may even undermine democratic legitimacy. In our new book Mapping and Measuring Deliberation, John Parkinson and I understand deliberation as contingent, dependent on different contexts and goals. Moreover, our new approach also understands deliberation as performative and distributed. On this basis, we re-politicise deliberation. Not only is it necessary to broaden the analytical lens and study deliberative action in all kinds of sites of a democratic system, we must also adapt our deliberative ideals to the variegated contexts and goals of deliberation. Finally, we must also grapple with the ´Goldilocks´ question that there may be too much deliberation, requiring us to think of balancing moments between deliberative and democratic ideals. About the speaker André Bächtiger holds the Chair of Political Theory at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Stuttgart. His research focuses on the challenges of mapping and measuring deliberation and political communication as well as understanding the preconditions and outcomes of high-quality deliberation in the contexts of both representative institutions and mini-publics. His research has been published by Cambridge University Press and in the British Journal of political Science, European Journal of Political Research, the Journal of Political Philosophy, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, European Political Science Review, Political Studies, and Acta Politica. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy (co-edited with John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge, and Mark Warren). Previous Next

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

< Back Triaging and the deliberative system in Toronto Nick Vlahos, University of Canberra Tue 8 September 2020 11:00am - 12:00pm Virtual seminar Seminar recording is available on our YouTube Channel Abstract This presentation discusses how the deliberative system in Toronto overlaps with political and bureaucratic processes. Scalar and spatial relations set the foundation for outlining three types of public engagement within Toronto’s deliberative system, i.e. a City of Toronto governance committee, residents’ associations, and neighbourhood planning tables. Public engagement in Toronto is discussed as a series of triaging, whereby public deliberation is geared towards problem-sorting. Where there are cross-organizational alliances and supports in place to try and get ahead of problems, they face the larger structures that favour different or rather competing logics and policies supporting private economic and planning development. Given the limited capacities, resources, mandates, and integration in overlapping political and economic processes, public engagement mechanisms that prioritize triaging can only have limited system-level impacts. About the speaker Nick Vlahos is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra, Australia. Previous Next

< 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