The Sydney Democracy Initiative

The Sydney Democracy Initiative (SDI) is a major new venture at the University of Sydney. It was launched in early 2011 and aims to develop pioneering research, postgraduate training and public outreach initiatives that will have a long-term positive impact on academic and public life in Australia and the wider Asia and Pacific region. Building on the University’s scholarly reputation and public profile for excellence in the social sciences, SDI aspires to recognised leadership in research, postgraduate training and public policy discussion in all matters concerning the past, present and future of democracy, generously defined.

The Sydney Democracy Initiative will foster new cross-disciplinary projects in a wide variety of subjects, including the rights of representation of indigenous peoples; the growth of cross-border governing institutions; communications media and journalism; women and politics; the future of citizenship; religion and public and private ethics; authoritarian regimes; environmental politics; and justice, human rights and democracy. In these and other fields, the working life of SDI is to be guided by a distinctive ethos: the conviction that in the early years of the 21st-century the subject of democracy both faces a steep uphill learning curve and requires fresh and imaginative thinking that names, explains and constructively engages with contemporary global realities in bold and creative ways.

The goals of SDI are as follows:

• To engage and inform a global audience on the state of democracy, past, present and future.
• Enhance the reputation of the University by helping to develop pioneering research, postgraduate training and public outreach initiatives that will have a long-term positive impact on academic and public life in Australia and the wider Asia and Pacific region.