About

I am an applied democracy theorist, currently Professor of Social and Political Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. I also hold an adjunct professorship in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra, Australia.

My research examines the links between the processes of governance broadly conceived and wider public debate and meaning-making. I have written on referendum processes around the world, public participation in policy making in the UK’s National Health Service, deliberative democratic theory and practice, and the requirements for public space in a democracy – check out the various research pages for more details, or the Teaching page for details of some of my marvellous PhD students.

My major contribution to democratic theory is one of the two main variants of the ‘deliberative systems’ approach in democratic theory, having instigated and co-edited Deliberative Systems with Jane Mansbridge at Harvard University in 2012.

A New Zealander, born in Wellington, I was raised nomadically in New Zealand, Hong Kong and, briefly, Singapore. I have lived and worked in Australia twice; and in the UK at where I was Lecturer then Senior Lecturer at the University of York from 2003 to 2010; then Associate and then full Professor at the University of Warwick from 2010 to 2014.

I blog here sporadically, and tweet @profparkinson.

Contact me

Professor John Parkinson
Department of Philosophy, Maastricht University
P O Box 616 | 6200 MD Maastricht | The Netherlands

jrp [at] johnrparkinson.net
@profparkinson