A collection of essays examining the Australian Citizens' Parliament, a project in deliberative democracy held in 2009. Explores its organization, the deliberation, the flow of beliefs and ideas, facilitator and organizer effects, and its impacts from a variety of theoretical, empirical, and practice perspectives.

Growing numbers of scholars, practitioners, politicians, and citizens recognize the value of deliberative civic engagement processes that enable citizens and governments to come together in public spaces and engage in constructive dialogue, informed discussion, and decisive deliberation. This book seeks to fill a gap in empirical studies in deliberative democracy by studying the assembly of the Australian Citizens’ Parliament (ACP), which took place in Canberra on February 6–8, 2009. The ACP addressed the question “How can the Australian political system be strengthened to serve us better?” The ACP’s Canberra assembly is the first large-scale, face-to-face deliberative project to be completely audio-recorded and transcribed, enabling an unprecedented level of qualitative and quantitative assessment of participants’ actual spoken discourse. Each chapter reports on different research questions for different purposes to benefit different audiences. Combined, they exhibit how diverse modes of research focused on a single event can enhance both theoretical and practical knowledge about deliberative democracy.

"A collection of essays examining the Australian Citizens' Parliament, a project in deliberative democracy held in 2009. Explores its organization, the deliberation, the flow of beliefs and ideas, facilitator and organizer effects, and its impacts from a variety of theoretical, empirical, and practice perspectives"--Provided by publisher.

Parliament is central to the democratic claims of our system of governance. This book evaluates the role and performance of this centrepiece of Australian government. It explores the institutional design of the parliament, and its principles and practices, presenting a compelling case for reform. Uhr discusses parliament's representative and legislative roles, and the issue of accountability. He looks at the place of representative assemblies in liberal political theory and assesses current institutional performance. He argues that republicanism can be seen as a form of deliberative democracy, examining ways in which such democracy might be made more effective and meaningful in Australia. Combining an authoritative knowledge of political theory with a familiarity with the inner-workings of the Australian parliament, the author makes an important contribution to debates in Australia and internationally.

This ground breaking book provides empirical and theoretical insights into the interface between deliberative democracy and the rough and tumble of interest groups in advocacy politics. It examines how deliberative ideals work alongside the adversarial realties of interest-based politics.

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Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.