Joanna Massie successfully defends her PhD dissertation!

Joanna Massie defended her Ph.D. dissertation From Proliferation to Refinement: (Re)assessing the Claims of Deliberative Democracy on September 15^th.

Joanna’s dissertation makes an important scholarly contribution to our understanding of deliberative democracy and demonstrates impressive versatility in the array of methods it employs to do so. Her work has the potential for genuine public impact. At a moment when democracies are confronting profound challenges—and when meaningful democratic innovations are urgently needed—Joanna’s research asks important questions about how deliberative institutions can move beyond promise toward practices that systematically improve democratic representation and decision-making.

Joanna’s defence was chaired by Dr. Sukhvinder Obhi, and her supervisory committee consisted of Dr. Clifton van der Linden (supervisor), Dr. Karen Bird, and Dr. Jonathan Rose (Queen’s).  The external examiner was Dr. Michael Mackenzie (Vancouver Island University).

Congratulations Joanna!