Research biography

Professor Dr Ron Levy is an interdisciplinary researcher writing on public law and political theory - especially deliberative democratic theory. His recent projects explore referendums in deeply divided societies, Indigenous constitutional reform, environmental constitutionalism and the deliberative dimensions of rights practice. Levy's books include Deliberative Peace Referendums (Oxford University Press, 2021, with Ian O'Flynn and Hoi Kong); The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2018, with Hoi Kong, Graeme Orr and Jeff King eds); and The Law of Deliberative Democracy (Routledge, 2016, with Graeme Orr). He has published numerous works on law and political theory, in several countries, including in Public Law, McGill Law Journal, UBC Law Review, UNSW Law Journal, Melbourne University Law Review, Federal Law Review, Public Law Review, Election Law Journal, Australian Journal of Political Science, Journal of Deliberative Democracy, Journal of Law and Philosophy and The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy.

Levy is the winner of several research awards including grants from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Australian Research Council. He was a chief investigator on two ARC Discovery Projects: 'The Law of Deliberative Democracy: Theory and Reform' (DP130100706, 2013-2015) bridging research on election law with deliberative democratic theory; and 'Confronting the Devolution Paradox' (DP140102682, 2014-2016) on federalism and political culture.

Levy convenes the International Advisory Panel on Referendums, a global network of scholars providing advice to governments and non-governmental organisations on referendum design and innovation. He also founded and co-convenes the ICON•S Constitutional Theory Group (Australia/New Zealand).

Levy has been a Fellow or Visitor at Cambridge, Yale, UC Berkeley, Stanford, McGill, Hebrew University, Sydney, King's College London and Oxford. He previously worked in the Ministry of the Attorney-General of Ontario, Constitutional Law Branch.

Research projects & collaborations

• Deliberative constitutionalism
• The law of deliberative democracy
• Constitutional referendums
• Referendums in divided societies
• Rights and deliberation

Grants

• ARC Discovery Project, 2013-2015: ‘The Law of Deliberative Democracy: Theory and Reform’ (with Graeme Orr) bridging research on law and deliberation
• ARC Discovery Project, 2014-2016: Confronting the Devolution Paradox’ (with AJ Brown, Robyn Hollander, Paul Kildea, Rodney Smith) on federalism and political culture
• COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action – Deliberative Constitution Making (led by Prof Min Rauchamps, Louvain, with 43 member states) – Non-European (Observer) member

Books & edited collections

• Ron Levy, Ian O'Flynn and Hoi Kong, Deliberative Peace Referendums (Oxford University Press, 2021)
• Ron Levy, Hoi Kong, Graeme Orr and Jeff King (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
• Rosalind Dixon, Ron Levy and Mark Tushnet (eds), Symposium: The Theory and Practice of Federalism in Deeply Divided Societies (2018) Federal Law Review 46:4
• Ron Levy and Graeme Orr, The Law of Deliberative Democracy (Routledge, 2016)
• Ron Levy, Molly O'Brien, Simon Rice, Pauline Ridge and Margaret Thornton, New Directions for Law in Australia: Essays in Contemporary Law Reform (ANU Press, 2017)
• Mark Bruerton, Tracey Arklay, Robyn Hollander and Ron Levy (eds), A People's Federation (Federation Press, 2017)
• Ron Levy and Graeme Orr (eds), 'Symposium: The Law of Deliberative Democracy' (2013) 12(4) Election Law Journal

Journal articles

• Ron Levy and Kate Ogg, ‘The Deliberative Democratic Turn in Human Rights’, Federal Law Review (forthcoming).
• Gabrielle Appleby, Ron Levy and Helen Whalan, 'Voice Versus Rights: A First Nations Voice and the Australian Constitutional Crisis of Legitimacy' (2023) 46(3) UNSW Law Journal 761.
• Ron Levy, 'Democratizing Constituent Power' (2023) 48(1) Journal of Legal Philosophy 44.
• Ron Levy, 'Fixed Constitutional Commitments: Evaluating Environmental Constitutionalism's "New Frontier"' (2022) 46(1) Melbourne University Law Review 82
• Ron Levy, 'Rights and Deliberative Systems' (2022) 18(1) Journal of Deliberative Democracy 27
• Ron Levy and Ian McAllister, 'Public Opinion, Indigenous Recognition and Referendum Voting in Australia' (2021) Australian Journal of Political Science 1
• Ian O’Flynn and Ron Levy, ‘Deliberative Constitutional Referendums in Deeply Divided Societies’ (2019) 52(4) University of British Columbia Law Review 203
• Asmi Wood and Ron Levy, 'A Mini-public of Academics: Experimenting with Deliberative Democracy and Indigenous Cultural Competency in Legal Education' (2019) 28(2) Legal Education Review 1
• Ron Levy, '"Shotgun Referendums": Popular Deliberation and Constitutional Settlement in Conflict Societies' (2018) 41(3) Melbourne University Law Review 1237
• Ron Levy, Amelia Simpson, Ian O’Flynn and Georgina Flaherty, 'Designing Referendums for Peacemaking: The Case of Bougainville', (2018) 33(2) Australasian Parliamentary Review 6
• Rosalind Dixon, Ron Levy and Mark Tushnet, 'Theories and Practices of Federalism in Deeply Divided Societies' (2018) 46(4) Federal Law Review 481
• Ron Levy, Neomal Silva and Benjamin Saunders, 'Deliberation at the Founding: Deliberative Democracy as an Original Constitutional Value', (2017) 28(1) Public Law Review 41
• Ron Levy, 'The Deliberative Case for Constitutional Referenda', (2017) 16(2) Election Law Journal 213.
• Graeme Orr and Ron Levy, 'Regulating Opinion Polling: A Deliberative Democratic Perspective', (2016) 39(1) UNSW Law Journal 318-340
• Ron Levy, 'La démocratie délibérative et de la loi électorale: le conflit et la congruence', (2014) 8(2) Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law (Amanda Mihoub Wright, James O McCarthy and Charlotte-Anne Malischewski transl.; based on 'The Law of Deliberative Democracy: Seeding the Field')
• Ron Levy, 'Deliberative Voting: Realising Constitutional Referendum Democracy', (2013) Public Law 555-574
• Ron Levy, 'The Law of Deliberative Democracy: Seeding the Field', (2013) 12(4) Election Law Journal 355-371
• AJ Brown and Ron Levy, 'A Tale of Two Questions? An Argument for Coordinated Constitutional Reform', (2011) 7(25) Indigenous Law Bulletin 31-36
• Ron Levy, 'Breaking the Constitutional Deadlock: Lessons from Deliberative Experiments in Constitutional Change', (2010) 34(3) Melbourne University Law Review 805-838
• Graeme Orr and Ron Levy, 'Electoral Malapportionment: Partisanship, Rhetoric and Reform in the Shadow of the Agrarian Strongman', (2009) 18(3) Griffith Law Review, 638-655
• Ron Levy, 'Regulating Impartiality: Electoral Boundary Politics in the Administrative Arena' (2008) 53 McGill Law Journal 1-57
• Ron Levy, 'Judicial Selection: Trust and Reform', (2007) 40(1) University of British Columbia Law Review 195-249
• Ron Levy, 'Judicial Selection Reform in Comparative Context', (2007) 40(2) University of British Columbia Law Review 591-62
• Ron Levy, 'Expressive Harms and the Strands of Charter Equality: Drawing Out Parallel Coherent Approaches of Discrimination', (2002-2003) 40 Alberta Law Review 393

Book chapters

• Ron Levy, 'The Law of Deliberative Democracy: Current Questions' in Glenn Patmore (ed), Research Handbook on Law and Democracy (Edward Elgar forthcoming).
• Sam Bookman, Cristy Clark, Julia Dehm, Elizabeth Hicks and Ron Levy, ‘Constitutional Mechanisms for Environmental Governance’ in Robert Brears and Jade Lindley (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Policy and Law (Palgrave, 2024).
• Ron Levy and Ian O’Flynn, ‘The Role of Deliberative Peace Referendums in the Constitutional Settlement of Conflict’ in James Gardner (ed), Comparative Election Law (Edward Elgar, 2022)
• Ron Levy, 'Democratic Innovation in Constitutional Reform', in Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar (eds), Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance (Edward Elgar, 2019)
• Hoi Kong and Ron Levy, 'Deliberative Constitutionalism', in André Bächtiger, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge and Mark Warren (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• Ron Levy, 'The "Elite Problem" in Deliberative Constitutionalism', in Ron Levy, Hoi Kong, Graeme Orr and Jeff King (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
• Ron Levy and Hoi Kong, 'Introduction: Fusion and Creation', in Ron Levy, Hoi Kong, Graeme Orr and Jeff King (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
• Ron Levy, 'A People’s Federation? Populism, Deliberation and Federal Reform', in Mark Bruerton, Tracey Arklay, Robyn Hollander and Ron Levy (eds), A People's Federation (Federation Press, 2017)
• Ron Levy, Molly O'Brien, Simon Rice, Pauline Ridge and Margaret Thornton, 'Introduction', in Ron Levy, Molly O'Brien, Simon Rice, Pauline Ridge and Margaret Thornton, New Directions in Law For Australia: Essays in Contemporary Law Reform (ANU Press, 2017)
• Moses, Lyria Bennett, Rajeev Goré, Ron Levy, Dirk Pattinson and Mukesh Tiwari, ‘No More Excuses: Automated Synthesis of Practical and Verifiable Vote-Counting Programs for Complex Voting Schemes’ in International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting (Springer International Publishing, 2017)
• Ron Levy, 'Constitutional Codification and Deliberative Voting', in Robert Blackburn (ed.), Case Studies on Constitution Building, UK Parliament, 2014
• Ron Levy, 'Dibujando fronteras: igualdad de la ley electoral y sus consecuencias democráticas', in Carlos Báez Silva (ed.) (Antonio Márquez Aguilar transl.; based on Drawing Boundaries: Election Law Fairness and its Democratic Consequences), Sistemas electorales y principios constitucionales, viii Congreso Mundial de la Asociación Internacional de Derecho Constitucional, 2012
• Ron Levy, 'Deliberative Constitutional Change in a Polarised Federation', in P. Kildea, A. Lynch and G. Williams (eds.), Tomorrow’s Federation, Federation Press, 2011
• Ron Levy, 'Drawing Boundaries: Election Law Fairness and its Democratic Consequences', in J-C. Tham, B. Costar and G. Orr (eds.), Electoral Democracy: Australian Prospects, Melbourne University Press, 2011

Commissioned reports

• Ron Levy, 'The Emergence of ‘Fixed Constitutional Commitments’ on the Environment: A Tool for Addressing Climate Change?', 31 October 2022, ConstitutionNet: Voices from the Field, International IDEA
• Hoi Kong, Ron Levy and Ian O'Flynn, commissioned contribution to report of International IDEA on the conflict in Ukraine, 2022 [not publicly available].
• Ron Levy, 'Informed Referendums', 14 January 2019, Research and Development Note, prepared for newDemocracy Foundation
• Ron Levy, 'Independent Report on ACT Citizens' Jury Pilot', 2 February, 2018 (requested by the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory)
• Ron Levy, 'Review Report on Bougainville Referendum Outcome Issues Study', 31 August 2018 (for National Research Institute, Papua New Guinea)

Case notes & book reviews

• Erudite Primer to the Constitutional Practice of Deliberative Democracy (review), (2015) 9(2) Brazilian Political Science Review 133.
• Review of Australia: The State of Democracy, (2010) Alternative Law Journal 35(4), 250-251.

PhD, MPhil and honours supervision

Willing to supervise in the areas:

• Laws of politics and democracy
• Constitutional law, theory, history and reform
• Deliberative democracy
• Referendums
• Rights

Current courses

Previous courses

Past courses

• Commonwealth Constitutional Law
• Contemporary Issues in Constitutional Law (advanced elective)
• Australian Public Law
• Lawyers, Justice and Ethics
• Torts
• Comparative Constitutional Law

How my works connects with public policy

Professor Levy convenes the International Advisory Panel on Referendums, a global network of scholars providing advice to governments and non-governmental organisations on referendum design and innovation.

He also founded and co-convenes the ICON•S Constitutional Theory Group (Australia/New Zealand).

Levy also previously co-directed the Project on Deliberative Governance and Law (DGAL), within the Centre for International and Public Law. Based at the Australian National University and the University of British Columbia, DGAL is an international network of scholars. The project advances research on institutional innovation based on cutting-edge studies of law, governance and deliberative democracy, and provides a platform for innovative ideas to influence domestic and international approaches to governance.