Dr Adele Webb is Research Fellow in Democracy and Citizen Engagement at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, where she is involved with the Connecting to Parliament project and in teaching for the Masters of Public Policy.

Adele is an early career political sociologist researching how citizens think about democracy, when and why they hold ambivalent attitudes to democracy, and how subjectivities and the political unconscious affect their engagement with democratic processes. Adele is also interested in Southeast Asian Politics, Post-Colonial Theory and Critical Interpretive methods. 

After completing her PhD at the University of Sydney (2019), Adele has held positions at Heidelberg University, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology. She has been invited to give public talks and lectures in Australia, Germany and the Philippines. 

Adele’s first monograph, Chasing Freedom: The Philippines’ Long Journey to Democratic Ambivalence, was published by Liverpool University Press and Ateneo de Manila University Press in 2022.

Alongside her academic work, Adele maintains an active profile in public engagement. She has a track record of disseminating her research findings through high impact media commentary. Her article on Philippine politics was the most high impact Politics and Society article published by The Conversation in 2016.

Adele worked for almost a decade in the International Development sector, including six years as Executive Director of Sydney-based NGO Jubilee Australia. She maintains an interest in activism around global justice, she has consulted for the UNESCAP and Griffith Asia Institute, and currently sits on the Research Committee of Jubilee Australia Research Centre.