Mark E. Warren joined the Department of Political Science University of British Columbia in 2004. As the holder of the Merilees Chair for the Study of Democracy, Warren was charged with establishing the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions in the Faculty of Arts, which he directed from 2004-2007. Warren received his B.A. from Lewis and Clark College, and his M.A and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He came to UBC from the Department of Government at Georgetown University, where he co-founded the Center for Democracy and the Third Sector. He taught previously at Northwestern University and Rice University.

Warren’s current research interests fall within the field of democratic theory. He is especially interested in new forms of citizen participation, new forms of democratic representation, the relationship between civil society and democratic governance, and the corruption of democratic relationships. He is author of Democracy and Association (Princeton University Press, 2001), and editor of Democracy and Trust (Cambridge University Press, 1999). Democracy and Association was the 2003 winner of the Elaine and David Spitz Book Prize for Democracy and Association, awarded by the Conference for the Study of Political Thought, and also received the 2003 Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Warren has published many book chapters in the areas of democratic theory and continental political thought, and has published numerous articles in journals such as the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and Political Theory.

Warren currently directs a SSHRC-funded Partnership project entitled Participedia (www.participedia.net), which uses a web-based platform to collect data about democratic innovation and participatory governance around the world. Participedia is building the data infrastructure for the emerging field of democratic innovations, as well as serve as a resource for governments, democracy practitioners and advocates.