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.
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.
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
Creating and Analysing a Citizens' Parliament: Exploring the Public's Deliberative Capacity. This project will contribute to public understanding of Australia's institutions of government, and to debates about possibilities for their reform. It will also demonstrate the contributions to governance that large-scale forums composed of typical citizens could make. In so doing, the project will illuminate the possibilities for more effective citizen participation and public consultation in Australia ....Creating and Analysing a Citizens' Parliament: Exploring the Public's Deliberative Capacity. This project will contribute to public understanding of Australia's institutions of government, and to debates about possibilities for their reform. It will also demonstrate the contributions to governance that large-scale forums composed of typical citizens could make. In so doing, the project will illuminate the possibilities for more effective citizen participation and public consultation in Australia's democracy. The project will develop applied expertise on these issues, and solidify Australia's standing as a leader when it comes to innovative democratic reform.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101358
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$394,105.00
Summary
Francesco Guicciardini as a Political Theorist. This project will examine the political writings of Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), aiming to disseminate Guicciardini's political theory in the English-speaking world and establish his importance as one of the great thinkers of the European political tradition. Simultaneously, it will uncover and reassess a number of his highly original theoretical insights, many still relevant today (particularly for contemporary republicanism). Guicciardini' ....Francesco Guicciardini as a Political Theorist. This project will examine the political writings of Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), aiming to disseminate Guicciardini's political theory in the English-speaking world and establish his importance as one of the great thinkers of the European political tradition. Simultaneously, it will uncover and reassess a number of his highly original theoretical insights, many still relevant today (particularly for contemporary republicanism). Guicciardini's political theory, in sharp contrast to that of his co-citizen and friend Machiavelli, received only limited attention, as his works were published only centuries after his death. This project will result in the first full-length monograph on the topic to appear in either English or Italian.Read moreRead less
Reconstructing Parliamentary Oppposition. This project reconstructs theories of parliamentary opposition in democratic regimes, blending conceptual analysis with empirical investigation of predominately Australian patterns of parliamentary opposition. Debates over conventional models of 'responsible opposition' reveal the international importance of Australia as a valuable test-case of opposition possibilities. Accordingly, this project uses the Australian experience for heuristic purposes to re ....Reconstructing Parliamentary Oppposition. This project reconstructs theories of parliamentary opposition in democratic regimes, blending conceptual analysis with empirical investigation of predominately Australian patterns of parliamentary opposition. Debates over conventional models of 'responsible opposition' reveal the international importance of Australia as a valuable test-case of opposition possibilities. Accordingly, this project uses the Australian experience for heuristic purposes to reformulate and strengthen theories of parliamentary opposition, drawing on parliamentary history and interviews, in addition to conceptual and comparative analysis.
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Realising Democracy Amid Communicative Plenty: A Deliberative Approach. The ever-increasing volume of political communication (especially online) challenges democracy and effective policy making. The aim of this project is to examine whether, how, why, and to what effect discourse flows within and between different sites in the new politics of communicative plenty. This research applies the idea of deliberative democracy, which puts meaningful communication between citizens and policy makers at ....Realising Democracy Amid Communicative Plenty: A Deliberative Approach. The ever-increasing volume of political communication (especially online) challenges democracy and effective policy making. The aim of this project is to examine whether, how, why, and to what effect discourse flows within and between different sites in the new politics of communicative plenty. This research applies the idea of deliberative democracy, which puts meaningful communication between citizens and policy makers at the heart of effective governance. It develops a deliberative analysis of controversy surrounding coal seam gas in Australia, using qualitative and 'big data' techniques to collect information. The knowledge generated is expected to inform efforts to put deliberative democracy into practice, as well as more effective environmental governance.Read moreRead less
The Micropolitics of Deliberation. This project will show how deliberative mechanisms can be designed and employed in Australia's system of governance (and in other countries), thereby improving the quality of citizen participation in Australian democracy and indicating more effective means of public consultation in policy making. The project will develop applied expertise on these issues, which can be put to use in the context of widespread current interest in deliberative consultation in gove ....The Micropolitics of Deliberation. This project will show how deliberative mechanisms can be designed and employed in Australia's system of governance (and in other countries), thereby improving the quality of citizen participation in Australian democracy and indicating more effective means of public consultation in policy making. The project will develop applied expertise on these issues, which can be put to use in the context of widespread current interest in deliberative consultation in government (especially in natural resource management).Read moreRead less