Jonathan is an Assistant Professor in the Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, where he teaches international relations. From 2015 to 2019 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Canberra, based at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. He did his PhD in the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University (graduating in 2014), with a focus on issues of fairness in UN climate negotiations. His research focuses on democracy and justice in global environmental governance, with an emphasis on climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development. He is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Earth System Governance Project, an international network of social scientists working on the governance of global environmental change.
You worked as a policy and program manager with AusAID between 2003 - 2009. What led you to leave the public sector and pursue an academic career? Did you have any academic role models that helped in your decision making?
My work at AusAID on a program to reduce deforestation had got me thinking about a range of questions relating to climate change and development that I wanted to take more time to explore. It wasn’t so much that I was dissatisfied with my job there – I enjoyed much of what I did (although there were inevitably some less exciting bits, like all the briefing and budget spreadsheets) and I worked with some fantastic colleagues. But the decision to make the move came at a time when our son was one year old and I wanted to shift to a more flexible period in my career to spend more time with him. I had always enjoyed studying and had imagined I would return to research at some point, so this seemed like as good a time as any. As it happens the clincher for deciding to do the PhD came during a public service management and leadership course I was sent on for a week in the Southern Highlands, when we were encouraged to think about our long-term goals (not sure whether in retrospect AusAID may have regretted paying for me to go on that course…).
In terms of role models, I’m not sure that I had any one person in mind when making my decision. I was fortunate to be taught in previous degrees by several academics whose work or teaching styles I learnt much from – in particular Will Christie, Mary Crock, Ivan Shearer and Diana Weinhold – who challenged me to think more deeply about the world in various ways. I was also encouraged that my soon-to-be supervisor, Christian Barry, was motivated by a desire to contribute to progress on real-world problems but also had a keen interest in pulling those problems apart in a careful, analytical way. That turned out to provide a great foundation for our work together during the PhD. My Dad worked in academia for many years (although in a very different field – papyrology) and has also been a longstanding source of inspiration. Every time I mark a student’s essay I’m probably unconsciously channelling the care he took in proofreading my essays at school.
Tell us a bit about your experience as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor John Dryzek on his Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship project, 'Deliberative Worlds: Democracy, Justice and a Changing Earth System'.
John and I had spoken briefly while we were at the ANU but it wasn’t until I joined UC in early 2015 that we would work together. The postdoc was a fantastic experience – it was the ideal transition from the PhD. The main project that I was working on – which would culminate in our book on The Politics of the Anthropocene, along with several other publications – aligned well with my existing work on global environmental politics while also opening up new horizons for me, in particular deliberative democracy and environmental problems beyond climate change (which had been the focus of my PhD). More importantly, John was the best collaborator and mentor anyone could hope for. He had a clear vision for our project but was always open to ideas I came up with. I also had a lot of freedom to pursue projects of my own, as well as time to deepen research collaborations, particularly with the Earth System Governance network. The Centre as a whole was an excellent place to work, and the collegiate and vibrant atmosphere was (and still is!) something rare and special.
What is the best advice you have ever received in the course of your studies and career?
‘Go home!’. This was what my director at AusAID would tell me – more than once – when he found me as a junior public servant just out of my graduate year still working at my desk at 7pm. It took a while to sink in, but I came to realise that no matter how late I stayed I’d never get through all the work I needed to do, and that I had to draw a line if I was to sustain both myself and my relationship with my wife and others close to me. This became even more important once kids arrived and once I entered academia. Because most academics are personally committed to their research – and because this work can be done more or less anywhere and any time of the day, hence the allure of flexibility – it’s easy for the lines between work and the rest of life to get blurred. And of course the work pressures that academics face make it hard to fit everything into a regular working week. Still, in academia as in the public service I think it’s vital to draw some boundaries around work and not let it crowd out the rest of your life. Even if you’re working from home, your home is more than just the place you work.
Can you tell us a bit about your research?
These days the word ‘research’ beckons forth the memory of those halcyon days when I had the time to do research… I say that somewhat in jest, but I think it’s fair to say that many of us have struggled to make as much headway on our research over the past two years – and in the first two years of teaching at UC I’ve understandably needed to focus more on teaching. When I do have the chance, I still mainly research on global environmental politics. The main project I’m working on is a Swedish-funded case study of Australia’s implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
I’m also working on a paper which elaborates on an idea we sketched out in The Politics of the Anthropocene book: a mode of institutional design that we describe as ‘living frameworks’, which combine the stability needed to safeguard long-term social-ecological values with the flexibility needed to respond to the unpredictable circumstances of the Anthropocene. I presented some of these ideas in a recent SchoPES seminar – thanks to everyone who joined the talk.
Finally, another work-in-progress is on reluctant participation in climate treaties. I’ve been working with an intern to trawl through the history of the ‘Fossil of the Day’ awards. These are a long-running (>20-year) institution at the UN climate talks, and they’re awarded by the Climate Action Network (an NGO peak body) to the country that has done the most to obstruct progress. Not surprisingly, Australia has racked up quite a few these awards, although it has some stiff competition from Canada and Saudi Arabia.
Publications from the past few years
Pickering, J., Bäckstrand, K., & Schlosberg, D. (2020). Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy-environment nexus. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 22(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908x.2020.1703276
Dryzek, J. S., & Pickering, J. (2019). The politics of the Anthropocene. Oxford University Press.
Pickering, J. (2019). Ecological reflexivity: characterising an elusive virtue for governance in the Anthropocene. Environmental Politics, 28(7), 1145-1166. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2018.1487148
Dryzek, J. S., Bowman, Q., Kuyper, J., Pickering, J., Sass, J., & Stevenson, H. (2019). Deliberative Global Governance. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/Doi: 10.1017/9781108762922
Forthcoming work
Pickering, J., Coolsaet, B., Dawson, N., Suiseeya, K. M., Inoue, C. Y. A., & Lim, M. (Forthcoming 2022). Rethinking and Upholding Justice and Equity in Transformative Biodiversity Governance. In I. Visseren-Hamakers & M. Kok (Eds.), Transforming biodiversity governance. Cambridge University Press.
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