John Gastil, Ph.D.

Dr. Gastil studies political deliberation and group decision-making. His research examines how citizens engage in democratic processes and how deliberative practices can enhance public policy.

John Gastil (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg Public Policy Center doing sabbatical research on the prospects for building a deliberative online platform for public engagement. At Penn State, he is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science, and School of Public Policy at the Pennsylvania State University, as well as Senior Scholar at Penn State’s McCourtney Institute for Democracy. Gastil’s research focuses on the theory and practice of deliberative democracy, group decision making, political communication, and public opinion. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles and academic book chapters on these subjects in outlets such as Political Communication, Journal of Deliberative Democracy, Journal of Politics, PLOS ONE, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and Small Group Research. The National Science Foundation has supported his research on the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review, the Australian Citizens’ Parliament, jury deliberation, cultural cognition, and democratic innovation online. His books are Hope for Democracy (Oxford, 2020) with Katherine R. Knobloch, Legislature by Lot (Verso, 2019) with Erik Olin Wright.