Bonus Ep8 Deliberation Culture Context - John Parkinson

Real Democracy Now! a podcast

Welcome to Episode 8 in this special bonus series of Real Democracy Now! a podcast about Deliberation, Culture and Context. This bonus series has been made in collaboration with the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. In this series, I speak with a number of people who participated in the Centre's conference in early December 2017 which brought together scholars from around the world to examine the different forms, meanings, and significance associated with deliberation in various cultures and contexts. A copy of the conference program is available here. This Conference was supported by John Dryzek's ARC Laureate Fellowship entitled "Deliberative Worlds: Democracy, Justice and a Changing Earth System." In this episode, I’m speaking with Professor John Parkinson, who is currently a Professor of Social and Political Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. I spoke with John about his reflections on the Conference where he was one of the speakers in the final roundtable discussion - Deliberation, Culture and Context: the state of play. John talked about his view that culture was not a noun and the importance of meaning-making to the practice of culture. He referred to the democratic innovations happening in South America and Ireland. And suggested that perhaps deliberative democrats have become hypnotised by the word deliberation and we should think about it as one mode of decision-making. John saw the Deliberation, Culture and Context as a conversation starter to more detailed thinking and work in this area. In the final two episodes in this bonus series I’ll be speaking to Dr Quinlan Bowman and Professor John Dryzek reflecting on the conference overall. I hope you’ll join me then.