Project Team

John Dryzek

John S. Dryzek is the founder of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. He holds the prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship for his work on environmental politics, global justice, and cultural variety Jin deliberative practice. He is the author of more than fifteen books on deliberative democracy and environmental politics and a fellow at the Academy of Sciences in Australia. Before moving to the University of Canberra, he was the head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Oregon, University of Melbourne and the Social and Political Theory Program at the Australian National University.

Adele Webb

Adele Webb is Research Fellow in Democracy and Citizen Engagement at the University of Canberra’s Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Her research looks at how citizens think about democracy, when and why they hold ambivalent attitudes to democracy, and how subjectivities and the political unconscious affect their engagement with democratic processes. Her first monograph, Chasing Freedom: The Philippines’ Long Journey to Democratic Ambivalence, was published by Liverpool University Press and Ateneo de Manila University Press in 2022. Prior to her PhD, Adele spent almost a decade working in the international development sector and she remains passionate about advocacy for global justice.

Ariadne Vromen

Ariadne Vromen is the Bunting Chair of Public Administration, in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. She is a political sociologist with long-term research interests in young people, citizen engagement, and digital politics. Relevant recent books include: Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement: the challenge from online campaigning and advocacy organisations, published by Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke; and the co-edited book, The Networked Young Citizen: social media, political participation and civic engagement, published by Routledge.

Selen Ercan

Selen A. Ercan is an Associate Professor of Politics at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her work sits at the intersection of normative democratic theory and empirical political research and examines a wide range of topics including the politics of inclusion and exclusion in multicultural societies, the prospects for public deliberation in the face of value conflicts and polarised public debates. Selen’s current research examines the ways in which deliberative democracy can respond to the crisis of democracy and inform the democratic reform initiatives. This research forms a part of her forthcoming book Mending Democracy. Democratic Repair in Disconnected Times (Oxford University Press, with Carolyn Hendriks and John Boswell). Selen is also one of the editors of Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice (2018, Routledge), The Sites of Deliberative Democracy (2015, Policy Studies) and The Crisis of Democracy: Which Crisis? Which Democracy? (2014, Democratic Theory).

Nardine Alnemr

Nardine Alnemr is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra. She researches the interaction of algorithms in online communication with deliberative democracy. Her research interest also includes internet governance and digital rights. 

Hans Asenbaum

Hans Asenbaum is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His research interests include identity and inclusion in new participatory spaces, digital politics, and theories of deliberative, participatory and radical democracy.  His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, New Media & Society, Communication Theory, Politics & Gender, the European Journal of Social Theory, and Political Studies. Hans is Co-convener of the Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association in the UK. After defending his thesis at the University of Westminster, he held a position as Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. He has been invited for research visits and public lectures in Germany, Brazil, and Australia and received several grants and scholarships.

Michael Neblo

Michael Neblo is Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Philosophy, Communication, & Public Policy and Director of the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA) at The Ohio State University. Neblo’s research focuses on deliberative democracy and political psychology. His most recent book, Politics with the People: Building a Directly Representative Democracy(with Kevin Esterling and David Lazer; Cambridge University Press, 2018), develops and tests a new model of politics connecting citizens and elected officials to improve representative government. He was invited to testify before the U.S. Congress about these findings. His first book, Deliberative Democracy between Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2015), cuts across the deadlock between supporters of deliberative theory and their empirical critics by focusing on the core goals of the larger deliberative political system.

Ryan Kennedy

Ryan Kennedy, Ph.D. is an associate professor and Senator Don Henderson Chair in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. His research is in areas of democracy and technology. His previous work has been published in Science, the American Political Science Review, and the Journal of Politics, among others.

Bear Brown

Bear Brown is a Political Science Ph.D. student at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and he is a research assistant for the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA). His areas of interest are anti-elitism and populism. His research largely focuses on how anti-elitism fits into democratic theory and how political actors strategically employ anti-elitism to their advantage.