Patrizia Nanz

Patrizia Nanz
Patrizia Nanz at FONA Forum 2017
Born	(1965-07-09) 9 July 1965 (age 56) Stuttgart, Germany
Occupation	Professor of transformative sustainability studies

Patrizia Nanz (born 9 July 1965 in Stuttgart, Germany) is a political scientist and an expert for public participation and .^[1] She is a professor of transformative sustainability studies at the University of Potsdam,^[2] and one of three scientific directors at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS).^[3]

On 1 March 2018 she was elected managing scientific director. Since 2020, she has been Co-Director of the Deutsch-Französisches-Zukunftswerk (Franco-German Forum for the Future),^[4] the foundation of which was decided by the Aachen Treaty that was adopted on 22 January 2020.^[5] She is the co-chair of "Science Platform Sustainability 2030", an interdisciplinary platform for research and dialogue to support the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in Germany.^[6] She has held a professorship for political theory at the University of Bremen since 2002.^[7] Patrizia Nanz was the head of the research area "Culture of Participation" at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen from 2013 to 2016.^[8] She is a founder of the European Institute for Public Participation (EIPP)^[9] and has been a member of the executive committee of the Participedia wiki, a database for democratic innovations worldwide, since 2009.^[10] She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the World Forum for Democracy hosted annually by the Council of Europe. Nanz has provided expert opinions to businesses, state agencies and governments in various European countries.

Her main areas of research are public participation^[11] and technology assessment (climate change, biotechnology, energy transition, final storage of nuclear waste), democratic theory, transnational governance and the political project of Europe^[12]).

Education and early career[]

A recipient of a scholarship awarded to gifted individuals by the Bavarian State Ministry of Education, Science and the Arts, Patrizia Nanz studied philosophy at Munich School of Philosophy and history and literary criticism as well as philosophy at universities in Munich, Milan and Frankfurt Rhine-Main between 1984 and 1990. During this time she also trained as a journalist at the IfP Catholic Media School in Munich and undertook internships with various newspapers (including an internship with the Arts & Culture section of the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung). Her thesis on the philosophy of language was supervised by Jürgen Habermas.

From 1991 Nanz worked for several years as an editor on science and non-fiction publications for German publishing house S. Fischer Verlag and Milan-based publishers Feltrinelli. Following a sabbatical at McGill University, where she attended lectures by Charles Taylor, Nanz commenced her doctoral studies in political science at the European University Institute in Florence] in 1997.^{[citation needed]} She completed her doctoral degree with a thesis, published in 2006, on the European public sphere (examiners: Philippe C. Schmitter, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Sabel, Peter Wagner).^[13]

In 2002, after working as a research associate with the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn,^[14] and completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster (London) researching on the subject of “Democracy, Deliberation and Learning at the Transnational Level: Risk Regulation in the European Union and the World Trade Organisation”, Nanz was appointed to a professorship at the University of Bremen with a focus on political theory. She was a guest researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.) in 2003 and a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin Institute for Advanced Study in 2005–06.

Research and other activities[]

Patrizia Nanz’s main areas of research are the European political project, the democratic innovation and development, public participation, and technology assessment (climate change, biotechnology, energy transition, long term storage solutions for radioactive waste).

From 2002 to 2010 Nanz was the coordinator and executive leader of the research project “Participation and Legitimation of International Organisations” at the Collaborative Research Center Staatlichkeit im Wandel (Transformations of the State) at the University of Bremen (from 2006 together with Jens Steffek). Between 2005 and 2009, Nanz led the German research effort for the project “Giving New Subjects a Voice: Migrants, Organizations and Integration into the Health Care System”. Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, the project sought to develop innovative approaches that would make the policy process and institutional settings of the health-care system more responsive to the needs of migrants. Nanz was the executive leader of the research project Fundamental Rights in the European Union from 2007 to 2010. The project was funded by the European Union and conducted within the framework of the European research network Resources, Rights and Capabilities: In Search of Social Foundations for Europe (CAPRIGHT).

In 2009 Patrizia Nanz co-founded the participedia wiki^[6] – a global database for democratic innovations. She is a member of the platform’s executive committee. From 2011 to 2013 Nanz contributed to the research project “Participedia: Strengthening an emerging global partnership”, which was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Together with Klaus Töpfer (IASS) and Claus Leggewie (KWI), she was the co-leader of the research project DEMOENERGY (Transformation of the Energy System as the Engine for Democratic Innovations),^[15] which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).^{[citation needed]} The project studied the development, implementation, and evaluation of dialogue-based processes for citizen participation as solutions for conflict resolution and de-escalation in connection with energy infrastructure projects.

Patrizia Nanz is a member of the boards of trustees of the Hannah Arendt Festival, which is staged annually in Hanover. She is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the World Forum for Democracy (Europarat). In addition she is member of the specified advisory board Cultural Education and Discourse of the German Goethe Institute,^[16] advisory board of Die Umwelt-Akademie, Munich,^[17] as well as corresponding member of advisory board of the European Forum Alpbach.^[18] Nanz has provided expert opinions to businesses, governments and government agencies in various European countries.

Coal phase-out in Germany[]

As part of an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany, Patrizia Nanz is also involved in a project concerning the phase-out of coal in the German region Lusatia. In their project "Social Transformation and Policy Advice in Lusatia", Nanz and the IASS analyse the supra-regional opportunities for democratically designed and socially just structural change in Lusatia and, in this context, develop proposals for structuring regional cooperation processes.^[19] The interdisciplinary research group is concerned with the fields of conflicts and opportunities of democratic and sustainable structural change, taking into account the historical and political circumstances as well as the inclusion of the people in the region. The findings of the project are available to political and social actors and are incorporated into the work of the "Zukunftswerkstatt Lausitz", which is accompanied by the IASS research group.^[20]

Science Platform Sustainability 2030[]

Patrizia Nanz is the co-chair of “Science Platform Sustainability 2030”,^[21] an interdisciplinary platform for research and dialogue to support the implementation of the German Sustainable Development Strategy within the context of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Development and its 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). The platform supports policymaking for sustainable development by generating, collating, and strategically disseminating knowledge. It provides a scientific perspective on both the progress towards and obstacles to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in, with, and through Germany. Working closely with stakeholders from civil society, business and policymaking, the platform identifies relevant research deficits and fosters dialogue in order to facilitate a broad exchange of ideas among representatives from academia, policymaking, the private sector, and civil society. The platform, which operates independently, applies a transdisciplinary approach in its work and is a key part of the new architecture supporting the implementation of the German Sustainable Development Strategy.

Participation[]

Along with Claus Leggewie and other social scientists, Patrizia Nanz is a proponent of democratic innovation based on the participation of a randomly selected sample of citizens (e.g. citizens' council), who are invited to develop and identify possible solutions to future challenges. These bodies are of a consultative/advisory nature and the adoption of their findings requires the approval of a democratically elected local council or parliament at the state or national level.

This approach to public participation is similar to the planning cell method developed by Peter Dienel.

In 2020 the book "Reconstructing Democracy" (Harvard University Press) was published, in which Patrizia Nanz, together with Charles Taylor and Madeleine Beaubien Taylor, uses local examples to describe how democracies in transformations can be revitalized by involving citizenship.

Patrizia Nanz has also argued that the contemporary crisis of democracy cannot be overcome merely by adopting elements of public participation as a complement to representative democracy. Instead, she believes, priority must be given to efforts to strengthen the credibility of democracy as a form of governance; for instance, by enabling citizens and policymakers to develop and assume responsibility for goals that can only be achieved over the longer term. According to Nanz, the future of the open society depends upon a vigorous defence of democratic rights and values as well as a broad public sphere, civic values, and solidarity.^[22][23]

Publications (selection)[]

Monographies[]

• Reconstructing Democracy. How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up, (with Charles Taylor and Madeleine Beaubien Taylor) Harvard University Press, 2020.
• Die Konsultative. Mehr Demokratie durch Bürgerbeteiligung, Klaus Wagenbach Verlag, 2016, (with Claus Leggewie)
• No Representation Without Consultation. A Citizen's Guide to Participatory Democracy(with Claus Leggewie), transl. by Damian Harrison & Stephe Roche, Between The Lines, June 2019.
• Handbuch Bürgerbeteiligung - Verfahren und Akteure, Chancen und Grenzen, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2012/2015 (with Miriam Fritsche). Italian Version: La partecipazione dei cittadini: un manuale. Metodi partecipativi: protagonisti, opportunita’ e limiti, Regione Emilia Romagna 2014.^[24]
• Europolis. Constitutional Patriotism beyond the Nation State, Manchester University Press, 2006; Italian Version: Europolis. Un idea controcorrente di integrazione politica, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, 2009. With a foreword by Charles Taylor.
• Wahrheit und Politik in der Mediengesellschaft: Anmerkungen zu Hannah Arendt, Klaus Wagenbach Verlag, 2006/2013.^[25]

Edited volumes[]

• Is Europe listening to us? Successes and Failures of EU Citizen Consultations (edited with Raphael Kies),^[26] Ashgate Publishing, 2013. French Version: Les nouvelles voix de l’Europe? Analyses des consultations citoyennes, Editions Larcier/De Boeck, forthcoming, 2013. With a foreword by EU-Commissioner Viviane Reding
• Civil Society Participation in International Governance: A Cure for Its Democratic Deficit? (edited with Jens Steffek and Claudia Kissling),^[27] Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Journal articles and book chapters[]

• “Participation”, in: Oxford Handbook of International Organizations (Ed. by Jacob Katz Cogan, Ian Hurd and Ian Johnstone), Oxford University Press, 2015 (with Klaus Dingwerth)
• "The future council. New forms of democratic participation", in: Eurozine,^[28] 2013 (with Claus Leggewie).
• "Lo sviluppo della cittadinanza comunitaria e la corte della giustizia europea", in Paradigmi. Rivista di critica filosofica, special issue 1, 2013.
• "Free Movement and the Emergence of European Social Citizenship", in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 4/2012 (with Dawid Friedrich and Kerstin Blome).
• "Global governance, participation, and the public sphere",^[29] in: David Held, Mathias König-Archibugi (Ed.), Global Governance and Public Accountability, Government and Opposition, 2004, pp. 314–335 (with Jens Steffek^[30]).

References[]

External links[]

• Homepage Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI)
• Homepage European Institute for Public Participation
• Homepage Participedia
• Interview with the Heinrich Böll Foundation about public participation (German)