Welcome to Deliberative Governance & Law
Welcome to the Project on Deliberative Governance and the Law’s website. You will find here information about recent and upcoming events and recent publications, as well videos and podcasts, and links to the project’s global network of members and related institutions.
The research on the intersections between deliberative democracy and law—including, notably, in the area of deliberative constitutionalism—continues apace. We hope that the resources you find on this site will inspire you to join the conversation.
~ Hoi Kong and Ron Levy
Upcoming News & Events
July 6, 2022
Conference Presentation
Ron Levy will present his paper ‘Fixed Constitutional Commitments: Evaluating Environmental Constitutionalism’s “New Frontier”‘ (2022) 46(1) Melbourne University Law Review (forthcoming) at the I*CON annual conference (online). This paper argues that there is a need for fixed constitutional provisions on the environment, which eschew balancing, in part in order to move environmental policymaking beyond the first steps of deliberation – and into the more numerous steps of implementation.
Oct, 2022
Journal Planning Session
The planning for a special journal issue on “a deliberative theory of rights”, as well as events associated with the planned issue, is underway. We intend to invite scholars who have already written in this area, as well as scholars whose academic interests align with the theme of the special issue but who are new to the field. Our plan is to convene two meetings of the group on Zoom prior to the submission of papers. The first meeting, which will tentatively take place in October 2022, will take the form of a reading group meeting to discuss a small number of key articles on deliberative rights. The second meeting, to tentatively take place in June 2023, will allow authors to workshop their papers. Final papers (approximately 10,000 words, footnotes included) would be due around September 2023.
The Latest
Jan 23, 2020
Colloquium on Deliberative Democracy & Public Authority at the University of British Columbia
In conjunction with the UBC Allard School of Law Faculty Colloquium Series: Deliberative Democracy & Public Authority
Theories of deliberative democracy emphasize deliberative or reasoned decision-making as a necessary and central part of any democracy. As deliberative democracy has come to dominate political theory, legal scholars have begun to elaborate how deliberative democratic ideals and legal norms and principles are mutually informing. This proposed Faculty Colloquium session, entitled “Deliberative Democracy & Public Authority,” combines four papers that investigate how the law-deliberative democracy interface constitutes public authority in constitutional, municipal, environmental and planning law.
Nov 18, 2019
DGAL Workshop at Worcester College, Oxford
DGAL co-director Ron Levy led a half-day workshop on research in the areas of direct and deliberative democracy, as well as public law. The participants were Rod Dacombe (King’s College London), Udit Bhatia (Oxford – Lady Margaret Hall and Jesus Colleges), Jeff Kennedy (Queen Mary University London), James Organ (Liverpool), Leah Trueblood (Oxford – Worcester College), Matt Qvortrup (Coventry) and Ronald van Crombrugge (KU Leuven). Many thanks to Dr Trueblood and Worcester Colelge for hosting this intensive, highly successful event.
Apr 11, 2019
DGAL Conference at the University of British Columbia
Mark Warren, Mary Liston, Jocelyn Stacey, Alex Flynn and Spencer MacKay (all of UBC), joined Ian O’Flynn (Newcastle, UK), Katy Collin (Georgetown) and DGAL directors Ron Levy (ANU) and Hoi Kong (UBC) for a day-long, intensive workshop on emerging research at the intersection of deliberative democratic theory and law. A number of speakers focused on direct-deliberative democracy, including O’Flynn and Levy, who presented on their developing work (pursued in collaboration with Kong) on ‘deliberative peace referendums’.