Roslyn Fuller

Fuller attended North Lambton Secondary School in Forest, Ontario. After finishing high school, Fuller moved to Europe at the age of 19 where she learned German at Clausthal University of Technology, and subsequently studied law with a focus on public international law and legal philosophy at the University of Göttingen.^{[1][better source needed]}

She then wrote her Ph.D. at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 2010 with a Ph.D. in law. She completed her dissertation on democracy and international law under thesis supervisor Gernot Biehler.^[2]

Fuller lectured in law at Trinity College Dublin and Maynooth University, during which she compiled the second edition of Biehler on International Law: An Irish Perspective,^{[3][verification needed]} which continued the work of Gernot Biehler, her thesis supervisor. She also authored academic articles on issues ranging from terrorism^[4] to participatory democracy^[5] and whistleblowing.^[6]

Fuller wrote ISAK, her first novel, in 2005 while studying for the bar exam in Germany. The novel, which is set in the future, is an allegoric reflection of the issue of international terrorism, in particular questioning what precisely constitutes terrorism and which actions by governments or individuals can be subsumed under the term.^{[citation needed][importance?]} In 2007, parts of the novel were adapted as a stage play performed at the Irish Writers' Centre.^{[7][importance?][verification needed]}

In 2008, Fuller co-founded the Irish Writers' Exchange,^{[8][verification needed]} an organisation of both Irish authors and writers from around the world who have chosen to make Ireland their home away from home. The group contributes book reviews of current and classic fiction for Dublin-based multi-cultural newspaper Metro Éireann.^[9] Fuller and her book ISAK were mentioned in the 2009 edition of German travel guide Marco Polo for Dublin^[10]

In 2010, Fuller edited and contributed to Dublin: Ten Journeys, One Destination, a collection of short stories published by the Irish Writers' Exchange.^[11][12]

In 2015 Zed Books published Fuller's academic research into democracy as a general trade book: Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed its Meaning and Lost its Purpose. The book analyses the origins of democracy, its modern applications and the resulting loss of "people power". A contributor to Forbes called Beasts and Gods "a visionary thought experiment . . . guaranteed to make you think differently about the trillion dollar bureaucracies we call democracy today."^[13]

In Beast and Gods, Fuller outlines the shortcomings of modern democracy (statistical skewing, corruption, unaccountable politicians) and contrasts the design of modern western democratic systems with both the original democracy in ancient Athens and the Roman Republic, concluding that much of what we think of as democracy today, has in fact, deeply undemocratic, Roman Republican roots. Fuller traces the effects of this democratic deficit from national parliaments to international organisations such as the IMF, World Bank and the UN Security Council.^{[14][non-primary source needed]}

Fuller then applies the principles of Athenian democracy to modern systems in order to determine how we could use modern information technology to unlock the participatory potential of direct, digital democracy.^[13]

In 2019, Fuller followed up on Beasts and Gods with the publication of In Defence of Democracy, which disputes the theories of academics and writers across the political spectrum who believe that voters are either too stupid, too racist or too crazy for democracy.^[15] She argues that these ideas are based on questionable empirical research,^[16] and that democracy is not about “right” or “wrong” outcomes, but simply a method of mediating conflict.^[17] Fuller also demonstrates that one of the commonly proposed political reforms – randomly selecting citizens into citizen assemblies or decision-making bodies (also called sortition) – not only misconstrues the role sortition played in the ancient Athenian democracy but ultimately enhances elite control by limiting decisions to small, externally controllable groups.^[18]

In 2020, In Defense of Democracy was selected as a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.^[19]