Jonathan Rose
Professor of Political Studies, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
I'm interested in how political communication shapes what governments do and how public policy is created.
Kingston, Ontario
Professor of Political Studies, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
I'm interested in how political communication shapes what governments do and how public policy is created.
Kingston, Ontario
From the "romance" of a first-year introduction to the "precision" of upper-year seminars. Recipient of the Frank Knox Award for Excellence in Teaching.
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Two decades investigating how governments communicate with citizens and how deliberative bodies can deepen democratic participation.
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Being an engaged academic helps my research and motivates my teaching.
Explore →I am Professor and Head of the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University, a job I consider, to quote Keith Richards, a "lucky accident."
There have been several formative events in my research. From April 2006 to June 2007 I was on leave from Queen's to serve as the Academic Director of Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, an experience that taught me a lot about the capacity of fellow citizens. It also lead to a new stream of research for me examining the effectiveness of citizens' assemblies as deliberative bodies. This work produced a book written with André Blais, R. Kenneth Carty, Patrick Fournier and Henk van der Kolk called When Citizens Decide: Lessons From Citizens Assemblies (London: Oxford, 2011), a book that won the Lipset Award for best book in Canadian politics from the American Political Science Association.
In 2021, a group of international colleagues and I published a book called Deliberative Mini-Publics: Core Design Features (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2021). This was our attempt to enumerate the elements of these sorts of bodies and how they might fit into the policy process.
Over my career, I have had many opportunities to make scholarly connections with governments and non-governmental organizations. I've been an expert witness for several House of Commons committees, the Auditor General of Canada, the Privy Council office and the Department of Justice for a Supreme Court of Canada case on electoral reform.
My citizen engagement work includes leading a panel for the Bank of Canada to choose the face on Canada's $10 bank note, helping develop Canada's policies around marine protected areas and several efforts at the municipal level. I created and led the Prince Edward County Citizens' Assembly, a body created to study the optimal size of municipal council. In September 2016, I partnered with my friend and collaborator, Peter MacLeod of MASSLBP to co-lead the Lethbridge Citizens' Assembly. Most recently, in 2024, I was the Academic Lead for the Yukon Citizens' Assembly. You can read more about that project in a recent Post.
Both digital and analogue — a Nikon D7000 for versatility, a titanium Contax G2 for the sheer aesthetics of the thing. You can see some of my photography here.
Four full marathons (Ottawa & Toronto), five halfs, four 30k Around the Bay races. I'm always training for my next marathon. My goal is to make my Boston qualifying time which may or may not be a ridiculous thing to do.
The through-line connecting the professional and personal: a conviction that ordinary people, given the right structures, are capable of extraordinary democratic work.
Book a meeting via Calendly, or reach out through the Department of Political Studies.
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