This conference was held at the Australian National University on 4-5 December 2006, organized by members of the Political Science Program and Social and Political Theory Program in the Research School of Social Sciences and coordinated by Professors John Dryzek and Barry Hindess.

Governance must increasingly proceed in the context of competing demands made by diverse communities at all levels – local, national, regional, and international. The competing and often contradictory nature of these demands poses all kinds of challenges to political and legal systems, and to the deliberative capacities of contemporary societies. Reactions to the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting Mohammed provide a recent demonstration of the urgency of such questions, and the difficulty of providing mutually satisfactory answers to them. Partly in response to such problems, issues of multiculturalism and communication across cultures have become prominent in the social sciences. Insightful and innovative approaches to these problems are emerging. The conference acted as a focus for these debates, bringing developments and contrasting perspectives together.

The conference integrated empirical studies, social and political theory, and policy applications. Contributions will look at how governance across difference can proceed in legal systems, in innovative conflict resolution mechanisms, in decentralized governance networks, in the larger public sphere, and in transnational interaction. The conference sought to address different perspectives on culture and difference; whether there are grounds for dialogue across cultures, and what these might be; the motivation for members of diverse cultures to talk, and to listen, to one another; appropriate methods for cross-cultural communication; and the ways in which cultural differences have been seen as posing a problem of governance. A particular focus was on the ways in which members of one culture pass judgment on and criticize the practices of another. This is a difficult topic, which raises a range of conceptual, normative, and governmental issues. These were examined in relation to indigenous, immigrant, nation-state and trans-national communities.

GOVNET; Political Science Program, RSSS; Social and Political Theory Program, RSSS; Australia and New Zealand School of Government and National Europe Centre

Further Inquiries

Katherine Curchin (katherine.curchin@anu.edu.au) and

Lina Eriksson (lina.eriksson@anu.edu.au)