Jean-Paul Gagnon

• Comment: A promotional article about an associate professor with an h-index of three. Wholly fails notability guidelines. Sulfurboy (talk) 03:04, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

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Jean-Paul Gagnon is a social and political philosopher, director of the Foundation for the Philosophy of Democracy and an associate professor of politics at the University of Canberra. He specialises in democratic theory and the philosophy of democracy. Key epistemic influences include cosmopolitanism, post-foundationalism, post-universalism, ‘secret histories of democracy, ‘Second Modernity,’ and hybridity theory. Gagnon’s current research focuses on cataloguing the real-existing adjectives that are used to describe the noun democracy, so far totalling over 2,500 in English literature. This is the first list He is also researching non-human democracy and drawing lessons to advise human democracy today.

Gagnon, along with Mark Chou, is co-founder and editor of the Journal Democratic Theory and co-editor of Palgrave’s Theories, Concepts and Practices or Democracy series He has authored four books, most recently ‘Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combating Civic Deficit?’ and has been published in a number of world leading journals.

Education and career

Gagnon was awarded the Commonwealth of Australia International Postgraduate in 2007. He received his PhD in Political Science in 2010 at the Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia. In 2011, Gagnon was awarded an Honorary Research Fellowship by the Centre for China Studies. In 2013 he joined the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia, as a university postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Arts. In 2014, Gagnon and Mark Chou co-founded the Journal Democratic Theory, an international academic journal that explores democracy through philosophical and interdisciplinary contributions. Democratic theory is publish and distributed by Berghahn.

In 2015, Gagnon became an associate professor at the University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia, in the School of Government and Policy. He has taught courses in democracy, Australian politics, political theory, the politics of China and public policy.

Research areas

Gagnon’s recent research is focused on two projects. The first is an ongoing effort to catalog adjectives within the English language that are used to describe the noun democracy. This project, run with the Sydney Democracy Network, has thus far resulted in over 2,500 adjectives. This is the only empirical list of its kind. Gagnon’s second research area is non-human democracies. His research spans across both animal and plant democracy and attempts to draw lessons to apply to human democracy.

Books

Mitigating Democracy and ‘A Question on Reason

Published by Macero Dominatus in 2007, ‘Mitigating Democracy and ‘A Question on Reason’ critiques international democratic processes. Gagnon uses a mix of political concepts to offer a practical methods to improve the democratic process.

Evolutionary Basic Democracy: A Critical Overture

Published by Palgraves Macmillan in 2013 and nominated for the 2013 Stein Rokkan Prize, ‘Evolutionary Basic Democracy: A Critical Overture’ argues the need for an understanding of democracy for the entire planet and all of humanity. Gagnon draws on the concept of non-human and human democracies in all forms to argues that democracy in itself is evolutionary and constantly fluctuating and mutating. He claims that we have no true understanding of democracy, which leads to significant political troubles. In ‘Evolutional Basic Democracy: A Critical Overture,’ Gagnon argues that democracy exists, to some extent, in every life-form.

Democratic Theorists in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought

Published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013,‘Democratic Theorist in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought’ includes works on ‘new democratic theory’ by Ulrich Beck, Noam Chomsky, John Dryzek, John Dunn, Francis Fukuyama, David Held, John Keane, Pierre Rosenvallon, Thomas Seeley and Albert Weale. Gagnon leads contributors through conversations on democracy to initiate discussion about a ‘new democracy theory.’ He argues that changing methods of research have decolonised the discourse surrounding democracy, therefore claiming the existence of a ‘new democratic theory.’

Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combatting Civil Deficit?

Co-authored with Mark Chou, Catherine Hartung and Lesley Pruitt and published by Rowman & Littlefield International in 2017, ‘Young Peopls, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combatting Civil Deficit?’ challenges the popular idea that young people are disengaged from politics and democratic participation. Rather, it explores how young people work with and against contemporary politics at an institutional and grassroots level. The authors suggest co-designing civics education programmes with a diverse representative of young people in order to engage them in all levels of the democratic process. They suggest these programmes have the potential to turn young people from citizens in the making to full citizens.

Publications/ work

• Mark Chou, J-P Gagnon, Catherine Hartung & Lesley Pruitt. Forthcoming, March 2017. Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combating Civic Deficit? London: Rowman & Littlefield International.**

• Gagnon, J-P and George Vasilev. 2016. ‘Opportunity in the Crisis of Democracy’ [Editorial]. Democratic Theory, 3 (1): 1-5.*

• Wolfgang Merkel and J-P Gagnon. 2016. ‘Democracies and their Crises Reconsidered’ [Interview]. Democratic Theory, 3 (1): 91-109.*

• Gagnon, J-P. 2016. ‘What animal could a democracy be? Ape, fox, lion … how about jellyfish?’ The Conversation. July 23.

• Gagnon, J-P, David Carter, and Fanny Thornton. 2016. ‘How Uber opens cities only to close them’. The Conversation. July 5. Republished by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, New Zealand Herald.

• Mark Chou, J-P Gagnon and Lesley Pruitt. 2015. ‘Putting participation on stage: examining participatory theatre as an alternative site for political participation’. Policy Studies, 36 (6): 607-622.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2015. ‘Building a Gramsci-Foucault Axis of Democracy’. In David Kreps (ed) Gramsci and Foucault: A Reassessment. Farnham: Ashgate. Pp. 75-90.**

• Stephen Elstub and J-P Gagnon. 2015. ‘A Genealogy of Deliberative Democracy’ [Interview]. Democratic Theory, 2 (1): 100-117.*

• Gagnon, J-P. 2015. ‘Non-human Democracy: putting inspirations, lessons and analogies to work’. The Conversation. December 24.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2015. ‘Non-human Democracy: in the Anthropocene, it cannot all be about us’. The Conversation. December 23.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2015. ‘Non-human Democracy: our political vocabulary has no room for animals’. The Conversation. December 22.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2015. ‘A Lesson in Democracy…from slime moulds’. Crick Centre Blog. November 19. See, also, the interview ‘Slimey politics: Can democracy be saved by slime mould?’ with the ABC’s Phillip Adams on Late Night Live and Kathleen Calderwood’s subsequent reportage ‘What slime moulds can teach us about politics’.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2015. ‘TPP revealed: at last we have the details – and a democratic deficit to be fixed’. The Conversation. November 9.

• Mark Chou, Catherine Hartung, and J-P Gagnon. 2015. ‘Shorten’s plan to lower the voting age could help increase political engagement’. The Conversation. November 2.

• Gagnon, J-P, Anthea McCarthy-Jones, and Mark Chou. 2015. ‘Kicking Pacifism: Japan’s pivot to militarism defies popular will’. The Conversation. October 6.

• Gagnon, J-P, Mark Chou and Octavia Bryant. 2015. ‘Democracy needs heroes to champion the cause’. The Conversation. July 27.

• Gagnon, J-P. Democratic Theorists in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought. London: Palgrave Macmillan.**

• Selen Ercan and J-P Gagnon. 2014. ‘The Crisis of Democracy: Which Crisis? Which Democracy?’ Democratic Theory, 1 (2): 1-10.*

• Robyn Eckersley and J-P Gagnon. 2014. ‘Representing Nature and Contemporary Democracy’ [Interview]. Democratic Theory, 1 (1): 94-108.*

• Gagnon, J-P and Mark Chou. 2014. ‘Why Democratic Theory?’ Democratic Theory, 1 (1): 1-8.*

• Gagnon, J-P. 2014. ‘Human Enhancement Technologies and Democratic Citizenship’. In Steven J Thompson (ed) Global Issues and Ethical Considerations in Human Enhancement Technologies. Hershey: IGI Global. Pp. 176-190.**

• Gagnon, J-P, Mark Chou, Selen Ercan and Giovanni Navarria. 2014. ‘Democratic Theories Database’. Working Paper #1, Australian Catholic University Research Node in the Sydney Democracy Network.

• Selen Ercan and J-P Gagnon. 2014. ‘When is Crisis Good for Democracy?’ Crick Centre Blog. September 4.

• Mark Chou, J-P Gagnon and Nicholas Osbaldiston. 2014. ‘The sessional trap’. Campus Review. November 4.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2014. ‘If we could talk to the animals, what might they tell us about politics?’ The Conversation. November 3.

• Gagnon, J-P and Mark Chou. 2014. ‘Bringing the free market down to earth is a moral question’. The Conversation. October 1.

• Gagnon, J-P and Mark Chou. 2014. ‘The ‘will of the people’? It’s the bastardisation of democracy’. The Conversation. September 8.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2014. ‘Bold spiders ensure a bright future for the whole colony’. The Conversation. June 9.

• Gagnon, J-P and Mark Chou. 2014. ‘Don’t like the budget? Your options aren’t limited to voting’. Independent Australia. May 30.

• Gagnon, J-P, Mark Chou and Tezcan Gumus. 2014. ‘Push to curb activists may add to sweatshop workers’ struggle’. The Conversation. April 30.

• Gagnon, J-P, Mark Chou and Tezcan Gumus. 2014. ‘Women keep democracy’s heart beating in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe’. The Conversation. April 4.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2013. Evolutionary Basic Democracy: A Critical Overture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2013. ‘Change tax tack to take power back’. Eureka Street. November 17.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2013. ‘Institutionalizing agonistic democracy: Post foundationalism and political liberalism [Book Review]’. Melbourne Journal of Politics, 36: 74-75.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2013. ‘Development by synergising renewable energy with social services’. International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 7 (4): 356-366.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘The Taliban Didn’t Create the Taliban, Imperialism Did’. Journal of South Asian Development, 7 (1): 23-42.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘Huron Socialism’. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 8 (2): 115-127.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘Post-Colonial Public Law: Are Current Legal Establishments Democratically Illegitimate?’ African Journal of Legal Studies, 5 (1): 21-43.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘An Intervention on ‘Democracy’ as a Term in Empirical Political Analysis’. Public Administration and Policy, 15 (2): 68-92.**

• Nick Osbaldiston and J-P Gagnon. 2012. ‘Adventures in dumbocracy: where are the experts on Q&A?’ The Conversation. September 24.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘Come together: the Olympics and Paralympics should unite’. The Conversation. September 11.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘The Olympic closing ceremony celebrates the myth of nations’. The Conversation. August 13.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘The Olympics are Illegitimate: a call for democracy in sport’. The Conversation. August 2.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘Musgrave Park and ‘the embassy in my own land’. The Conversation. May 17.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘Treasurer or Member for Lilley? Perhaps Wayne Swan doesn’t have to be both’. The Conversation. May 8.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘Sorry Clive Palmer, Wayne Swan’s vision is better for Australia’. The Conversation. March 5.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘If our underwhelming politicians don’t pass the test, perhaps it’s time to make them sit one’. The Conversation. February 16.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2012. ‘A right royal rip-off – how much should Commonwealth nations pay for the Queen’s Jubilee?’ The Conversation. February 7.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2011. ‘Establishing Indigeneity in African Pluralities using PRO169 Parameters and a Case Study for Measuring their Inclusivity’. African and Asian Studies, 10 (4): 323-346.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2011. ‘A Potential Demarcation between “old” and “new” democratic theory? An attempt at positioning a segment of the extant literature’. Social Alternatives, 30 (3): 5-9.**

• Gagnon, J-P. 2011. ‘Book review of: Marquand, David. The End of the West: The Once and Future of Europe (2011)’. Social Alternatives, 30 (3): 42-43.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2011. ‘As Berlusconi exits, is democratic reform the next real step for Europe?’ The Conversation. November 9.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2011. ‘Nation-state or country-state: how do we discuss belonging in an age of fluidity?’ openDemocracy. 12 April.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2011. ‘Gaddafi and Libya – a case for just intervention?’ openDemocracy. April 1.

• Gagnon, J-P. 2010. ‘Democratic Theory and Theoretical Physics’. Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 6 (2): 1-22.**