Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100811
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$366,036.00
Summary
Justifying war. This project will develop a comprehensive new account of the ethics of war. Radically departing from the current philosophical orthodoxy in its focus on the distinctively collectivist dimensions of war's morality, it will offer a new take on both the positive reasons that justify warfare and the constraints on starting, fighting and ending wars.
Feasibility in politics: Taking account of groups and institutions. This project aims to research feasibility in politics. Normative political discourse is pervaded by the use of claims about what is feasible and infeasible. The project will examine feasibility practices, the functions they serve, what is required to serve the functions effectively, how actual practices stack up, and how to improve them. It will fuse philosophical and empirical analysis; encompass three salient case studies (imm ....Feasibility in politics: Taking account of groups and institutions. This project aims to research feasibility in politics. Normative political discourse is pervaded by the use of claims about what is feasible and infeasible. The project will examine feasibility practices, the functions they serve, what is required to serve the functions effectively, how actual practices stack up, and how to improve them. It will fuse philosophical and empirical analysis; encompass three salient case studies (immigration, poverty and climate change); and engage practitioners, commentators and ordinary citizens. The project intends to inform the development of just and effective immigration, poverty and climate change policy, reflecting a better understanding of the role of feasibility in politics.Read moreRead less
Democratic Resilience: The Public Sphere and Extremist Attacks. The project aims to explain responses to extremist attacks intended to sow division, and why some democracies prove fragile, succumbing to polarisation or exclusion of key groups, while others prove resilient by sustaining integrative, tolerant discourse. The project develops new knowledge through an innovative synthesis of cultural sociology and deliberative democracy to analyse nine cases of responses in the public realm to attack ....Democratic Resilience: The Public Sphere and Extremist Attacks. The project aims to explain responses to extremist attacks intended to sow division, and why some democracies prove fragile, succumbing to polarisation or exclusion of key groups, while others prove resilient by sustaining integrative, tolerant discourse. The project develops new knowledge through an innovative synthesis of cultural sociology and deliberative democracy to analyse nine cases of responses in the public realm to attacks. Expected outcomes include a new account of the democratic public sphere, and identification of how meaningful, civil communication whose health is vital to democracy, especially in a multicultural society, can be maintained. Benefits include identification of measures to counter extremist political disruption.Read moreRead less
Political normativity and the feasibility requirement. Commonsense says that claims about how social and political life ought to be arranged must not make infeasible demands. This project will investigate this piece of commonsense and explore its implications for a number of pressing issues, such as climate change, multiculturalism, political participation, inequality, historical justice, and the rules of war.
Automatic Authorities: Charting a Course for Legitimate AI. Public and private actors are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to exercise power over citizens, who are increasingly unsure whether to accept that power. AI faces a crisis of legitimacy. This project aims to use technically- and empirically-grounded philosophy to make Australia a global leader in the study and design of legitimate AI. The project expects to launch and make fundamental progress in a new field: the Politica ....Automatic Authorities: Charting a Course for Legitimate AI. Public and private actors are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to exercise power over citizens, who are increasingly unsure whether to accept that power. AI faces a crisis of legitimacy. This project aims to use technically- and empirically-grounded philosophy to make Australia a global leader in the study and design of legitimate AI. The project expects to launch and make fundamental progress in a new field: the Political Philosophy of AI. Expected outcomes include new strategies shared with industry and government partners for designing and deploying legitimate AI systems. Expected benefits include the opportunity to enjoy the public and private efficiencies enabled by AI, without compromising our freedom and equality.Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0354865
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$20,000.00
Summary
Pacific Futures Network: Security, Governance and Development in the Pacific Islands Region. The proposed research network will interweave the following strands in order to create an entirely new level and quality of diagnosis, prognosis and action in Pacific-oriented research: (a) ANU and Australian expertise and knowledge base; (b) regional expertise, especially in universities, research institutes, archives and cultural institutions; (c) digital expertise; (d) existing networking capacity and ....Pacific Futures Network: Security, Governance and Development in the Pacific Islands Region. The proposed research network will interweave the following strands in order to create an entirely new level and quality of diagnosis, prognosis and action in Pacific-oriented research: (a) ANU and Australian expertise and knowledge base; (b) regional expertise, especially in universities, research institutes, archives and cultural institutions; (c) digital expertise; (d) existing networking capacity and future potential. Thematically, it will place primary emphasis on research on conventional and human security, governance, development and other issues pertaining to the condition of the polities and economies of Australia's near Pacific neighbours, including the Melanesian states characterised as 'weak' and more recently, 'failed'.Read moreRead less
Retrieving the Record: the White Australia policy, citizenship education and new applications for archival research. This project will develop models for making more effective use of the resources of the National Archives of Australia within civics and citizenship education. Using the resources of the Archives, the team will produce a new history of the White Australia policy, which will be developed into a public display and forum, showing how archival materials can illuminate the complexities ....Retrieving the Record: the White Australia policy, citizenship education and new applications for archival research. This project will develop models for making more effective use of the resources of the National Archives of Australia within civics and citizenship education. Using the resources of the Archives, the team will produce a new history of the White Australia policy, which will be developed into a public display and forum, showing how archival materials can illuminate the complexities of the democratic process. Supplementary research will investigate prospects for making stronger institutional connections between the Archives, citizenship education and teachers' professional formation. Benefits include increased understanding of immigration, Australian political history, educational strategies and the Archives' role and resources. Read moreRead less
Australian political rhetoric: the role of public speech by elected representatives in contemporary Australian politics. What is the public benefit of the endless rituals of rhetorical claim and counter-claim performed by members of parliament? This project demonstrates that rhetoric is central to politics, through detailed case analysis of the performative side of Australian parliamentary politics. Good rhetoric, when we have it, makes for good politics.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101866
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$324,557.00
Summary
Building back better: Participatory governance in a post-Haiyan world. 'Building back better' has become a global mantra for countries recovering from disasters. This project aims to examine how this principle can be extended from rebuilding disaster-resilient physical infrastructure to rehabilitating institutions of participatory governance to ensure the inclusive and empowering character of recovery efforts. Through a multi-sited ethnography in cities worst hit by the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in th ....Building back better: Participatory governance in a post-Haiyan world. 'Building back better' has become a global mantra for countries recovering from disasters. This project aims to examine how this principle can be extended from rebuilding disaster-resilient physical infrastructure to rehabilitating institutions of participatory governance to ensure the inclusive and empowering character of recovery efforts. Through a multi-sited ethnography in cities worst hit by the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, a theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded analytical toolkit that gauges the democratic quality of post-disaster reconstruction will be developed. The project aims to generate insights into the precise ways in which participatory governance can also be 'built better' in a post-Haiyan world.Read moreRead less
The Theory and Practice of Deliberative Democracy. This project links the theory of deliberative democracy to institutional innovation, to benefit both, through comparative case analyses of democratic innovations in different countries. It is hypothesized that particular kinds of institutional innovation (such as consensus conferences, policy dialogues, dialogical networks) will work out quite differently in different political contexts. If so, then the emphasis of almost all democratic theory o ....The Theory and Practice of Deliberative Democracy. This project links the theory of deliberative democracy to institutional innovation, to benefit both, through comparative case analyses of democratic innovations in different countries. It is hypothesized that particular kinds of institutional innovation (such as consensus conferences, policy dialogues, dialogical networks) will work out quite differently in different political contexts. If so, then the emphasis of almost all democratic theory on models of democracy is misplaced: instead, theorists should attend to processes of democratization in particular contexts. The results of the comparative case analyses will be used to reflect back upon, and reformulate, deliberative democratic theory.Read moreRead less