RESEARCH
I research the human right to democratic decision-making, focusing on new legal developments in rights of direct political democracy, environmental democracy, economic democracy, workplace democracy, democratic control of money as a public good, and the right to democratic decision-making in global governance. I have a particular interest in the growing use of randomly selected citizens’ assemblies (sortition)—which automatically achieve fifty percent participation of women drawn from a cross-section of socio-economic groups.
Citizens' assemblies have been used widely including to address climate change and abortion reform in Ireland, constitution drafting in Iceland, and electoral reform in Canada. I focus on empirical study of how such innovations in direct, participatory democracy can be used to help address the elite capture of policy outcomes in electoral democracy and technocratic rule in public and private governance that is at the root of rising inequality; structural racism, sexism, and classism; environmental catastrophe; and economic exploitation.