Dimitri Courant

Dimitri Courant is a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School.

Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Fung Global Fellow at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), at Princeton University. He received his dual Ph.D. in political science jointly from the University of Lausanne and the University Paris 8. He holds a master’s degree in political science from Sciences Po Rennes and a master’s in social sciences from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS, Paris). He also studied at Queen Mary University of London through the Erasmus program. He currently is the vice-president of the related group on Democratic Innovations at the American Political Science Association (APSA).

Dr. Courant’s research focuses on deliberation, representation, democracy, and sortition. His qualitative fieldwork inquiry compares several case-studies, especially the Irish Citizens’ Assemblies (Ireland); the Citizens’ Convention for Climate, and the National Great Debate (France). He was also part of the team leading the first Citizen Initiative Review in Switzerland. His postdoctoral work investigates citizens’ assemblies on climate change in an international comparative perspective.

Courant’s recent publications include: “Institutionalizing deliberative mini-publics? Issues of legitimacy and power for randomly selected assemblies in political systems” (2022); and “Citizens’ Assemblies for Referendums and Constitutional Reforms: Is There an ‘Irish Model’ for Deliberative Democracy?” (2021). He is co-editing (with Bernard Reber) the forthcoming book The French Citizens’ Convention for Climate: Deliberative Democracy and Just Ecological Transition.