Deliberation

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Spotlighting the Backstage Governance of Citizens Assemblies

ByRikki Dean

Most attention on citizens assemblies understandably focuses on what happens on stage. What do the participants discuss and how deliberative are their interactions? But what happens on stage is in large part shaped by what is happening behind the scenes – for example, who decides what the agenda for discussion is, and how? In a new report from the Global Citizens’ Assemblies Network (GloCAN), we examine these backstage governance practices in cases from across the world and ask what they tell us about how to organise a global assembly.

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Are elections a means to avoid difficult collective decisions about how we want to be governed? Some rough thoughts inspired by Michael Sandel.

ByRikki Dean

I am scribbling down these thoughts following a lecture at Goethe University by Michael Sandel on Democracies’ Discontents. There were two important but disconnected points in the lecture, which inspired a chain of thoughts for me on the nature of elections as an avoidance mechanism.

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Comparative Democracy Podcasts

ByRikki Dean

To celebrate the new English-language MA in Comparative Democracy at Goethe University Frankfurt, Hanna Pfeifer, Julian Garritzmann and I took over the Talk Social Science To Me Podcast and produced three episodes on key themes in the field. All episodes are now available on your favourite podcast provider or click on the links below.

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Can citizen deliberation address the climate crisis? Not if it is disconnected from politics and policymaking

ByRikki Dean

A large number of national climate assemblies have been set up across Europe to enable citizens to make climate policy recommendations. But do these bodies have any impact? Drawing on new research, John Boswell, Rikki Dean and Graham Smith argue that greater attention should be paid to how these assemblies can be integrated into the world of politics.

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Bürgerrat Demokratie: Abschlussbericht der wissenschaftlichen Evaluation

ByRikki Dean

Der Abschlussbericht fasst die Ergebnisse der wissenschaftlichen Evaluation des Beteiligungsverfahrens „Bürgerrat Demokratie“ durch die Forschungsstelle Demokratische Innovationen der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main zusammen, die den Beteiligungsprozess ab Juni 2019 bis November 2019 begleitete.  

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What is Democratic Theory? A New Special Issue

ByRikki Dean

A new special issue of the journal Democratic Theory, co-edited with Jean-Paul Gagnon and Hans Asenbaum, tackles the question of “What is democratic theory?”. It is a surprisingly infrequently posed question in the field. With contributions from Michael Saward, John Keane, Carole Pateman, Graham Smith and many others.