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Please join us for a FAD Research Seminar Series hosted by the N&MRCDate: Monday 17 May 2021Time: 1:30pm-2:30pmLocation: 1A21 & ZoomPresenter Dr Nicole Curato Title â€˜Thank you for sharing’: Overcoming Disinformation through Democratic Deliberation Abstract There is a dynamic global community of stakeholders working towards addressing the challenges posed by disinformation, especially during elections. Journalists have launched fact check initiatives. Donors continue to invest in media literacy programmes. Tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter are strengthening their content moderation practices.  These initiatives, while valuable, overlook the voices of ordinary citizens. How do citizens characterise the problem of ‘fake news’ during elections? Do they find disinformation a serious challenge to electoral integrity? Does disinformation offer a greater threat than the longstanding issues of electoral fraud, disenfranchisement, and threats of violence? What can we learn from the collective wisdom of ordinary citizens? To answer these questions, our research team conducted a three-day deliberative forum on disinformation in the Philippines – a country that Facebook considered to be the ‘patient zero’ of the global disinformation epidemic. Twenty-six randomly selected Filipinos from all over the country came together to learn about disinformation.  They deliberated on the dangers created by the spread of ‘fake news,’ answering questions of who should be held accountable for the production of disinformation and who should safeguard social media from its harms. Participants were then asked to generate collective recommendations for stakeholders leading campaigns against disinformation.  Findings of the study reveal that ordinary citizens view disinformation as closely linked to structural issues of the role of money in politics and the precarity of economic labour in a middle-income country’s gig economy.  The presentation concludes by making a call to shift the centre of gravity in scholarship of disinformation. Disinformation studies remain largely shaped by the experiences of the Global North even though many of the disinformation innovations (as well as their remedies) are unfolding in the Global South. The presentation seeks to present an alternative account of disinformation grounded on the lived experiences of disinformation producers and ordinary citizens in disinformation ‘hotspots’ around the world.  Biography Nicole Curato is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her work examines how democracy can take root in communities recovering from the trauma of disasters, armed conflict, and urban crime. She is the author of the prize-winning Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedy to Deliberative Action (2019, Oxford University Press) and the editor of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy.  

Please join us for our first presentation in the FAD Seminar Series – hosted by the News & Media Research Centre and the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Date: Monday 21 March 2022Time: 12:30pm-1:30pmLocation: Online - email nmrc@canberra.edu.au for the link

We are delighted to invite you to the first HDR Research Training hosted by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. In this inaugural workshop, we will explore inductive research methods. Adele Webb will share insights on her inductive research, using critical interpretative methods. She will talk about the three analytical methods – historical archival research, discourse analysis and interpretative interviewing – all of which fall under an overarching genealogical approach. Hans Asenbaum will introduce democratic theorizing, an inductive method for building democratic theory with actors outside of academia, in particular, with social movements. This approach brings together elements from grounded theory, participatory research, assemblage theory, and decolonial methods. The workshop will also provide ample opportunity to discuss experiences and challenges of your PhD projects.

6 February 2024Juliet Room, Verity Lane Market, Sydney Building, 50 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra ACTReception: 5:30Panel discussion: 6:00 – 7:15 pmDemocracies’ responses to environmental crises, health emergencies, and racial violence have been unsatisfactory, to say the least. Hyper-partisan politics have taken over our representative democracies, rendering our democratic institutions vulnerable to political deadlocks and cheap political point-scoring.While there are many reasons to lose trust in our democracy, there are also many reasons to fight for it. You are invited to join a conversation on how we can transform Australia’s democracy and chart pathways for systemic change.Our discussion will kick off with three international speakers who will share lessons from democratic innovations that have taken off all over the world and demonstrate how randomly selected citizen bodies, decolonising and anti-racist action, and listening to nature and nonhumans can transform democracies today. This will be followed by an open discussion, where audiences can propose their own ideas for democratic transformation.Registration is required. Please register through this link or click 'register' below.SpeakersHans Asenbaum is the author of The Politics of Becoming: Anonymity and Democracy in the Digital Age. He is senior research fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance at the University of Canberra.Kyle Redman is the Director of Design and Research at The newDemocracy Foundation, a non-profit research foundation whose work focuses on the use of democratic lotteries and deliberation in Australia and overseas. He is also an Executive Board Member of the Federation for Innovation in Democracy – Europe, and a member of Australia’s Open Government Forum.Melissa Williams is the founding director of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethics. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including Voice, Trust, and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation.This event launches the new blog series on Democratic Transformations led by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance and the European Consortium for Political Research. Read the blog here.

Are deliberative mini-publics enough to promote deliberative democracy?For Prof Simone Chambers (University of California Irvine), deliberative mini-publics can be most effective when they serve as opinion leaders and mobilizers in partisan debates within the voting public. Meanwhile, Prof Hélène Landemore (Yale University) argues that self-governed deliberative mini-publics need to be articulated to mass democracy via referenda, citizens' initiative, or right to referral, and serve as generalist, agenda-setting bodies with some legislative powers on their own. What role do mini-publics play in promoting deliberative democracy? What kind of power and influence should they have?You are invited to join this conversation on 8 Apr (US) / 9 Apr 2024 (Australia).This seminar will be chaired by Prof John Dryzek.This event is part 3 of a 10-part seminar series on 10 Big Questions on Deliberative Democracy convened by Dr Adele Webb.This event is online only. Join us on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7220752429 About the speakersSimone Chambers is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of California Irvine.  She has written and published on deliberative democracy, referendums, constitutional politics, the public sphere, secularism, rhetoric, civility, digital misinformation and the work of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. She has recently published Contemporary Democratic Theory (2023) with Polity Press.Hélène Landemore is Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a Faculty Fellow with Yale’s Institute for Social and Policy Studies, where she leads a research agenda on Citizens' Assemblies. In 2022-23, she was part of the governance committee of the second French Citizens' Assembly, the Convention on End-of-Life Issues.ModeratorJohn Dryzek is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and founder of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra.Seminar Convener: Adele WebbOnline floor manager: Ferdinand SanchezAll Centre seminars are recorded. To access the recording of our seminar series and other events, visit our YouTube channel. 

This event is online only. Join us on Zoom.For Daniel Kübler, the role of citizen competence in democracy is a controversial issue. Empirical studies find that citizen incompetence is astonishingly widespread but crucially depends on elite cues in public debates related to decision-making processes.  A realistic approach thus needs to acknowledge the context in which citizen participation and deliberation take place and understand how this context fosters (or does not foster) citizen competence.Meanwhile, for Simon Niemeyer, the longstanding debate concerning everyday citizen competence draws on outdated models of individual rationality applied to a problematic democratic stage. If we instead understand human deliberative capabilities as evolved in dynamic group settings a dramatically different picture emerges — one that exposes deep injustice, in terms how we understand citizen competence and how that failure in many democratic traditions has served to undermine it.Join the conversation on the competence of everyday citizens as deliberators with Simon Niemeyer and Daniel Kübler moderated by Lucy J Parry.This event is part 5 of a 10-part seminar series on 10 Big Questions on Deliberative Democracy convened by Dr Adele Webb. SpeakersSimon Niemeyer is a Professor and co-founder of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His research in deliberative democracy includes conceptualising the nature of deliberative reason and understanding the conditions that support it. Daniel Kübler is a Professor of Political Science and co-directs the Center for Democracy Studies at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research focuses, among others, on citizens’ opinion formation in direct democratic voting, as well as on participation in citizen assemblies.ModeratorLucy J Parry is a Research Associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Seminar Convener: Adele WebbOnline floor manager: Ferdinand SanchezAll Centre seminars are recorded. To access the recording of our seminar series and other events, visit our YouTube channel.

This event is hybrid. Join us on Zoom or at Building 24, University of Canberra.How should deliberative democracy respond to extremism?Far-right extremism threatens democracy by spreading exclusionary and anti-democratic ideals, such as white supremacy. How can deliberative democracy help us understand the roles of the media and political leaders in responding to the harms caused by extremist actors? What pragmatic solutions can deliberative processes offer, especially in countering extremism's personal and emotional appeals? You are invited to join this conversation featuring Dr Jordan McSwiney (University of Canberra) and Prof John Gastil (Penn State University). This seminar will be chaired by Prof Selen Ercan. This event is part 6 of a 10-part seminar series on 10 Big Questions on Deliberative Democracy convened by Dr Adele Webb. About the speakersJordan McSwiney is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. He researches the far right, with a focus on the organisation and communication of far-right parties and movements. He is the author of Far-Right Political Parties in Australia: Disorganisation and Electoral Failure (Routledge). John Gastil is a Professor at Penn State University. He has studied political psychology and democratic innovations for thirty years, and some of the reforms he has proposed became law. He received major funding to study attitude formation and how people revise their beliefs when invited into more deliberative political institutions and experiences. ModeratorSelen Ercan is the Director of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Seminar Convener: Adele WebbOnline floor manager: Ferdinand SanchezAll Centre seminars are recorded. To access the recording of our seminar series and other events, visit our YouTube channel.

Hosted by CDDGG, University of CanberraDate and time: Tue 2nd Jul 2024, 5:30 pm - 7:15 pm AESTRegister here: https://events.humanitix.com/book-launch-democracy-versus-diablo-in-the-usa-and-australiaYou are invited to a participatory book launch for André Bächtiger and John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times: Confronting Populism, Extremism, Denial, and Authoritarianism.You will hear from one of the book’s authors (John Dryzek) as well as special guests Professor John Gastil from Pennsylvania State University and Associate Professor Caroline Fischer of the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.You will get an opportunity to discuss their points and deliberate your own ideas about the challenges facing democracy in Australia and the USA, and how best to confront them. There will also be a chance to meet and talk more informally.This book launch will be moderated by Keith Greaves from MosaicLab. 

This event is hybrid. Join us on Zoom or at Building 24, University of Canberra.How should deliberative democracy respond to extremism?Can deliberative democracy challenge macho populism? For Hans Asenbaum, the field of deliberative democracy may have come a long way in recognising female marginalisation, but it has so far neglected cisgender, heterosexual, masculinities. Only when deliberative democracy recognises such hegemonic identities can it challenge the heterosexist domination underpinning macho populism.María Esperanza Casullo has a different take. For her, deliberative democracy can challenge macho populism by upholding the value of the most basic of human activities: talking. Macho populism seeks to define the simple act of talking as unproductive, decadent, in sum, feminine. It has a clear preference for supposedly masculine performances of aggression. Therefore, the act of deliberation itself has the potential to become the grounds for resistance. Join the conversation with Hans Asenbaum and María Esperanza Casullo, moderated by Jordan McSwiney. This event is part 7 of a 10-part seminar series on 10 Big Questions on Deliberative Democracy convened by Dr Adele Webb. About the speakersHans Asenbaum is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His research interests include radical democracy, queer and gender studies, digital politics, and participatory research methods. Hans is the author of The Politics of Becoming: Anonymity and Democracy in the Digital Age (Oxford University Press, 2023). The book draws on queer theory to make sense of identity transformation in democracy. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Politics & Gender, and the Journal of Gender Studies.María Esperanza Casullo is an Associate Professor at the National University of Rio Negro and a researcher at CONICET in Argentina. She obtained a PhD in political theory from Georgetown University. She has published extensively on democratic theory and populism. Her last published paper is "The populist body in the age of social media: A comparative study of populist and non-populist representation" in Thesis Eleven, in co-authorship with Rodolfo Colalongo. ModeratorJordan McSwiney is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra.Seminar Convener: Adele WebbOnline floor manager: Ferdinand SanchezAll Centre seminars are recorded. To access the recording of our seminar series and other events, visit our YouTube channel.

The spread of mis- and disinformation is one of the most pressing challenges facing democracies worldwide, distorting public debate and eroding trust in democratic institutions and decision-making processes. How can democracies address this challenge and ensure public conversations remain inclusive, well-informed, and reflective of diverse perspectives?In this seminar, Ika Trijsburg (University of Melbourne) and Sophie Murrary-Farrell (NSW Premier’s Department) will engage in a conversation exploring the latest research insights on countering mis- and disinformation, along with practical strategies implemented by government agencies.Hosted by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, this event is part of our monthly hybrid research-practice exchange series, where we examine innovative ideas, strategies, and solutions to strengthen democracy in Australia and beyond.Ika Trijsburg is the Research Fellow City Diplomacy at the University of Melbourne and Head of Democracy and Diplomacy at the Municipal Association of Victoria. She leads the Disinformation in the City project across five Australian universities, which she initiated within the Melbourne Centre for Cities. Sophie Murray-Farrell is the Acting Director of Connected Communities, which is part of the Delivery and Engagement Group in the NSW Premier's Department. Connected Communities’ focus is on strengthening social cohesion and democracy, as well as overcoming hate and extremism in NSW. This is achieved by working in partnership with community and faith leaders, local government, academics, and civil society.The seminar will be moderated by Dr Jordan McSwiney, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra.This seminar is hybrid, held both in Fishbowl at Building 24 and online.