Program

The State of Democracy and Politics:
Local, Regional and Global

APSA2024

APSA 2024 Conference Program

APSA2024 Conference Guide

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Day 1 - Tuesday 26th

Day 2 - Wednesday 27th

Day 3 - Thursday 28th

Keynote Speakers

We are excited to welcome Professor Ariadne Vromen (Australian National University) and Professor Nicole Curato (University of Canberra) as the keynote speakers for APSA2024, The State of Democracy and Politics: Local, Regional and Global. These distinguished speakers offer thought-provoking perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing democracy in today’s rapidly evolving political landscape. From local governance to global political movements, Professors Vromen and Curato will provide unique insights into the forces shaping democracy.

 

Ariadne Vromen. A woman wearing glasses, seated on a blue chair, smiling and appearing relaxed and friendly.

Ariadne Vromen 

Ariadne Vromen is the Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administration in the Crawford School of Public Policy, a position co-funded by ANU and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). She has been Deputy Dean (Research) for ANZSOG since 2020 where she co-created a new collaborative model for government-university research. Prior to this role she was a political sociology professor at the University of Sydney for 21 years. She is a member of the APSA Executive and its Past-President.
Ariadne’s long-term research interests include: citizen engagement, digital politics and governance, women and the future of work, policy advocacy, and young people and politics. In 2022 she published a new co-authored book: Crowdsourced politics: the rise of online petitions and micro-donations, and has a co-authored book in press with Michigan University Press: Story Tech: Power, Storytelling and Social Change Advocacy. In February 2025, Ariadne will move to the University of Glasgow to become the new Head of the Division of Political and International Studies. She is taking her growing record collection with her, and has already booked tickets to four great gigs, including two at the legendary Barrowland in Glasgow.

 

What's trust got to do with it? Reimagining policymaking-research relationships.

Professor Ariadne Vromen (Australian National University)

In a year of tumultuous policy change for Australian universities, the distance between the public sector and university researchers is expanding. In this keynote I will overview the current debates on evidence-based policymaking and outline the asymmetric power relationships (Marsh et al 2024) between policymakers and researchers embedded in knowledge exchange and knowledge brokering. University-based researchers increasingly compete with other influential knowledge producers, such as think tanks and for-profit consultants, to supply evidence that shapes policy. Simultaneously, political and ideological factors often undermine evidence-informed policymaking (Head 2016); or some forms of knowledge and evidence, such as RCTs, are prioritised and valued.
To seriously reimagine the contribution political studies researchers can bring to effective policymaking we need to focus on how mutually constituted trust can be re-built into knowledge brokering relationships (see Cuffe et al 2024). Policymakers need to welcome evidence into the heart of the policymaking process and work with researchers to co-create research agendas that address government agendas (Cairney et al 2024). In the context of ongoing policy problems more pluralist forms of evidence are also needed. Recently Helen Sullivan (2024) has called for a paradigmatic shift in public policymaking, built on sustainability, sovereignty, and justice, that requires active collaboration with a plurality of actors enabled to contribute new knowledge. Continuing this theme, I will also argue for a renewed focus on recognition and dignity (Lamont 2023) in strengths-based policymaking using qualitative evidence based on lived experience and personal stories.

 

Nicole Curato

Nicole Curato is a Professor of Political Sociology at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her work examines the transformative power of deliberative governance in fragile and conflict-affected settings. She has been awarded five Australian Research Council grants in the past ten years, including a DECRA Discovery Project, Linkage Project, Special Research Initiative, and the Future Fellowship, published three books on deliberative democracy, numerous journal articles, public reports, and op-eds for outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian, and Australian Foreign Affairs. 

 
 Nicole Curato, a woman with short hair wearing a stylish black and white sweater, with a broad smile exuding confidence.

How global deliberative politics can transform today's privatised public sphere. 

Professor Nicole Curato (University of Canberra)

Democracy does not stand a chance in techno-feudal times. When private corporations control our public sphere, citizens, lose the power to assert equal voice and demand accountability. This keynote address presents a bold normative and political agenda to transform today’s privatized public sphere through global deliberative politics. Drawing from global sociology, critical historiography and decolonial practice, it outlines an ambitious but plausible political project that brings subjugated knowledges from the margins to the centre of global public deliberation. Concrete examples from hyper-local to transnational levels will illustrate the radical potential for alternative futures.