DCU Institute of Future Media, Democracy and Society Institúid DCU um Meáin Todhchaí, Daonlathas agus Sochaí
DCU Institute of Future Media, Democracy and Society Institúid DCU um Meáin Todhchaí, Daonlathas agus Sochaí

COMDEL

Deliberation for Climate Action

COMDEL

COMDEL is a comprehensive research project investigating how deliberative democracy can address climate change. The project explores how communicative deliberation can bridge gaps between climate scientists, citizens, media, and policymakers to build resilience against disinformation and enhance informed decision-making. By delivering new theoretical and empirical insights, COMDEL aims to foster cohesive and collective climate action while countering misinformation and vested interests.

The Problem

Policymakers and politicians are often more responsive to elite opinion than to public opinion, the former usually influenced by lobbying and contact with ideologically conservative groups. The resulting disconnect means that, despite the availability of technological and policy solutions for transitioning to a carbon-free society, many affluent countries fail to implement effective political action. While Citizens’ Assemblies - which bring together scientists, citizens, and policymakers - are increasingly used to address the climate issue, research indicates that they have little impact on policymaking. Additionally, there is a risk of these democratic innovations being instrumentalised for strategic purposes, potentially leading to de-democratisation and distrust rather than democratic progress.

The COMDEL Solution

COMDEL seeks to identify how deliberative initiatives can be consequential and influence policy outcomes effectively. The project focuses on communication within the “deliberative system,” particularly the relationships between Citizens’ Assemblies, the media and political systems. By addressing the communication challenges unique to climate change, COMDEL aims to examine this disconnect and bridge the gap between citizens’ needs and policy outcomes.

The research examines whether democratic innovations like Citizens’ Assemblies can influence policymakers and media elites while countering the impact of groups that hinder climate action. This is especially critical in the context of climate change mitigation, where insufficient action by policymakers threatens to derail global efforts to contain warming, despite international accords and commitments.

Methodology

To achieve its objectives, COMDEL employs a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative method which include:

- Theory building and conceptual mapping

- Experimentation

- Text mining and content analysis

Research on dissemination of denial and rebuttal narratives across platforms, mainstream media and parliamentary speech.

The project also investigates how deliberative systems can inoculate both citizens and elites against climate change misinformation, fostering resilience and enabling meaningful climate action.

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Key Information

Funder

Irish Research Council

Participants

Professor Jane Suiter

Professor Jane Suiter is the Director of DCU Institute for Media, Democracy and Society (FuJo). She is a social scientist whose research interests focus on the public sphere. Her present research is focused on the social, political and communicative aspects of citizen participation, empowerment and direct and participative democracy. She has a particular interest in the potential of deliberation and how worked on and researcher a number of real world deliberative assemblies including We the Cit...

Dr Robert A. Brennan

Dr Robert A. Brennan is a social psychologist who joined the FuJo team as a Postdoctoral Researcher in November 2024. He holds an Honours BSc in Psychology and an Erasmus Mundus Joint MSc in the Psychology of Global Mobility, Inclusion, and Diversity in Society (Global MINDS). In 2020, he worked as a research assistant at Eötvös Loránd University on multinational projects PolRom and MisMiE. He completed his PhD at the University of York in 2024, researching the extent to which apparent dehuma...

Dr Lorin Sweeney

Dr. Lorin Sweeney is a Postdoctoral researcher who completed a PhD in computer science, specializing in memorability---the likelihood that something will be remembered. While their PhD focused on memory research, their current work applies state-of-the-art computational methods to the subject of climate communication. Leveraging advances in deep learning, Dr. Sweeney is conducting novel research to analyze and map communication flows and narratives in the context of climate discourse. Their inte...

Fionna Saintraint

Fionna is currently a PhD Candidate working on citizens' assemblies in policymaking. She was previously Project Manager for the French speaking parliament of Brussels for two years....

Rabhya Mehrotra

Rabhya Mehrotra is a Mitchell Scholar, one of twelve Americans selected to study in Ireland by the US-Ireland Alliance. At DCU, she is pursuing a Masters' in Political Communication. She graduated from Yale University in December 2022 with degrees in computer science and political science. Using her hybrid academic background, she hopes to research how democracy reform can address democratic backsliding and empower citizens. At Yale, she served as the co-director of the Yale Politics Initiative ...

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