Speakers
(in alphabetical order)
The author of Making Peace with Referendums (Syracuse University Press: New York, 2019), Joana Amaral’s research and publications focus on inclusion and public participation in peace negotiations, especially on public communication, civil society, armed groups, and referendums, in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, and Colombia. Both a researcher and practitioner, she has worked and collaborated with several peace institutions and NGOs around the globe, such as the Berghof Foundation, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in Cyprus, the German-Colombian Peace Institute CAPAZ, and the United Nations.
Chairperson of the Bulgarian Association for the Promotion of Citizens Initiatives. Author of several books and has researched issues of direct democracy as a Fulbright scholar. As Chair of the Bulgarian Association for the Promotion of Citizens Initiative she is co-organizer of the international educational campaign “Stop fighting Start Voting”.
Assistant Professor of Global Governance at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology from the Erasmus School of Behavioural and Social Sciences of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals. Clara Egger’s research interests broadly focus on the political economy of crises and crisis-management policies. In her research she aimed at uncovering how such institutions can be designed. The research interests have evolved from an original focus on the role citizens – in intervening and crisis-affected countries – play in the governance of foreign crises to the analysis of how democracies can be made more resilient to domestic crises.
Bruno Kaufmann reports as Global Democracy Correspondent. He has also worked for the SRG as a foreign correspondent for Swiss Radio and Television SRF for over thirty years. His expertise: global affairs, international relations, democratisation processes, electoral processes, participatory and direct democracy. He is also Director of International Relations at the Swiss Democracy Foundation, Co-President of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy and Co-Initiator of Democracy Cities. He is co-founder of the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe and Co-President of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy. The political scientist is the author of numerous publications on the topic of “participatory and direct democracy”.
Akademischer Rat and Research Associate at the University of Wuppertal, Deputy manager of the Institute for Democracy and Participation Research at the University of Wuppertal. His research fields include the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany, local political research, participation and the effects of direct democratic procedures.
Matt Qvortrup is Professor of Political Science at Coventry. The author of several books on referendums, including Referendums and Ethic Conflict. He is editor-in-chief of The European Political Science Review. A lawyer as well as a political scientist, he earned his doctorate at Oxford University. In addition to his career as an academic he has worked as an advisor to the US State Department and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Research Associate at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Wuppertal. His work focuses on: Legitimation strategies of violence, Peace, conflict and violence reseach, Discourse and narrative research, the Peace Process in Colombia..