Public Deliberation Consortium
Not a member yet
327 research outputs found
Sort by
When is Deliberation Democratic?
No full text“Deliberative democracy” is a compound term. In both theory and practice, it connects deliberative influence through reason giving, reciprocity, and publicity to a family of political systems that broadly enable popular control of the state and government through empowerments such as voting, petitioning, and contesting, as well as the electoral and judicial systems that enable them. These empowerments are democratic when they are distributed to, and usable by, those affected by collective decisions in ways that are both equal and equitable.
While deliberative influence is best protected and incentivized by democratic political systems, not all deliberation is democratic, and not all approaches to democracy are deliberative. We should distinguish and relate these terms: we need to differentiate the practice of deliberation from the contexts of democratic enablements and empowerments in which it occurs. We can then focus on the pre-deliberative conditions that will enable or limit the extent to which deliberation is democratic. Two pre-deliberative democratic features stand out as particularly important in this context: popular participation—how individuals come to have standing and voice as participants, and agenda-setting—how concerns come to be defined as issues. We further argue that since deliberation typically occurs downstream from agenda-setting, and since popular participation both shapes and is shaped by this practice, theorists and practitioners of deliberative democracy should pay close attention to each well before deliberation begins.
To make this case, we first theorize the democratic dimensions of deliberative democracy through the concepts of equity and equality. Second, we focus on agenda setting and popular participation as important, though not exclusive, pre-deliberative determinants of equality and equity during deliberation. Finally, we offer suggestions about how theorists and practitioners of deliberative democracy might think about responding to the challenges generated by the tension between equality and equity prior to democratic deliberation
Negotiating Deliberative Ideals in Theory and Practice: A Case Study in Hybrid Design
No full textMuch literature on deliberation is derived from ideal theory. However, deliberations are inevitably non-ideal in two ways: (1) many deliberative ideals are in tension with each other; and 2) intended balancing of ideals cannot be attained perfectly amidst the messiness of real-world recruitment and conversation. This essay explores both kinds of non-ideality in respect to a case study: the 2011 community deliberative processes on a state public health “biobank,” the Michigan BioTrust for Health. We follow two recommendations from major contemporary theorists of deliberation: to be transparent about how competing deliberative goals are negotiated in deliberative design; and to publicize case studies that report associated struggles and results. We present our “hybrid design” that sought to negotiate tensions within three families of deliberative goals: goals of representation and inclusion; goals of discourse-framing; and goals of political impact. We offer deliberative facilitators tentative suggestions based on this case study, concluding deliberations need not be “ideal” to be transformative
How Far Can We Go with Deliberative Research at Dangerous Places?
No full textThis paper reflects on several past research projects that required convening deliberative discussions in dangerous places. It raises questions about the safety of participants, collaboration with government agencies, and working within the constraints of ethical research practices. The reflection offers practical insights into the conduct of deliberative research and practice in difficult and dangerous locations
Framing the Public Discourse Across Time: National Issues Forums Guides on Immigration in the U.S. (1986-2013)
No full textThis paper analyzes the National Issues Forums issue guides on immigration in order to understand how the NIF frames the issue deliberatively. Ideograph analysis is used to identify key terms in the immigration issue guides from 1986, 1994, 2003, and 2013 in order to uncover the cultural worldview surrounding immigration. The two key contrasting terms identified are a “nation of immigrants” and “illegal immigrants,” and the strong contradiction between these terms is offered as an explanation for the instability surrounding immigration in the public discourse. Since the choice work conceptual frame utilizes multiple competing ideographs to discuss immigration, a productive tension is maintained, allowing for a nonpartisan deliberative framework that encourages public dialogue and limits polarization
Promoting Inclusion, Equity and Deliberation in a National Dialogue on Mental Health
No full textThe struggle to find adequate mental health care is complicated by underlying factors of discrimination, cultural barriers, lack of early recognition, and inadequate resources. Traditionally, it has been difficult to talk about mental health issues because of fear of bias, cultural sensitivities and the lack of a safe place to discuss public concerns. This has left many families to grapple with problems in silence. As a result of President Obama’s call to action on mental health, six deliberative democracy organizations formed an initiative called Creating Community Solutions (CCS). Their goal was to develop a multi-strategy program to respond to the challenges of reducing barriers to mental health and to create greater access to mental health services, especially for youth and underrepresented populations. This article focuses on how practitioners used extensive outreach and designed the process to reduce the inequalities participants can face in deliberation, allowing them to generate action plans for creating more equitable access to services. Through six-hour town hall meetings, community conversations, and an innovative texting platform, over 57,000 persons participated in the project, including community members, people with lived experience, mental health providers and youth
Constructing a United Disability Community: The National Council on Disability’s Discourse of Unity in the Deliberative System around Disability Rights
No full textThe National Council on Disability (NCD) is a federal agency that connects members of a broad disability community to federal policymakers within the deliberative system (Mansbridge, 2012) that constitutes the disability rights movement in the U.S. In this critical discourse analysis, the author considers the Council\u27s depiction of the deliberative system in its publication Equality of opportunity: The making of the Americans with Disabilities Act (NCD, 2010). Paying particular attention to discourses of unity and difference within this history of the ADA and in NCD’s About Us web pages, the study looks to understand how the Council’s depiction of the disability community and portrayal of its own role within the deliberative system impacts their legitimacy within the disability rights movement. Interrogating the ways in which unity is privileged over diversity in NCD’s history of the ADA shows how the Council exhibits a consensus democratic orientation that presents the disability community as an unwavering force to be reckoned with, positions the National Council on Disability at a position of power within its deliberative system, and highlights the deliberative nature of NCD’s mission. However, the ways in which NCD’s history of the ADA downplays difference in favor of unity sidesteps stakeholder concerns and fails to engage with social difference as a resource for inclusion and collaboration. Further, NCD discourse works to define human worth in terms of work and deliberation in terms of consensus in ways that reinforce stigma around disability and exclude underrepresented groups. The author offers some practical suggestions aimed at helping the Council and other policymakers and leaders in social justice movements to incorporate more pluralist perspectives to address issues of exclusion
Equity in School Forums: An Interview with John Landesman
No full textAmerican school boards, parent teacher associations, and other school forums are crucial sites for participatory and deliberative democracy, yet they often involve debilitating inequities of power among school officials and parents, adults and students, and parents from more and less privileged backgrounds. In this interview, John Landesman, a Senior Associate at Everyday Democracy, discusses how he addresses power differences in dialogues aimed at improving parental participation and student learning in a diverse school district outside Washington, DC. Landesman argues that developing a robust equity strategy from the start is the only way to meet the aims of dialogue that strives to include a variety of perspectives. Landesman also shares insights into how to practice equity at each stage of organizing a dialogue, from inclusive recruitment and retention of participants, to forum design and facilitation, to evaluating and implementing the group’s plans. Like many contributors to this issue, he argues that specific equity strategies should flow from the goals of a particular dialogue. He also discusses how Everyday Democracy has employed affinity group discussions, which create safe places for members of non-dominant groups to speak with each other as one stage of a community-wide dialogue
Affinity Groups, Enclave Deliberation, and Equity
No full textThere is growing appreciation for the value of holding enclave dialogue and deliberation among marginalized peoples in their own affinity groups, as one stage in a larger conversation with the broader public or with public officials. These enclaves may be disempowered by enduring political inequalities, or in relation to a particular issue under discussion, or by the act of deliberation itself. Recent research and practice has demonstrated that well-structured dialogue and deliberation in enclaves can increase the inclusion, participation, and influence of members of society who have been excluded from public discourse, while avoiding the dangers of coercion, sectarianism, conformism, error, and illegitimacy. We review normative arguments and empirical evidence for the judicious use of affinity group enclaves to advance equity. We show multiple ways in which enclaves can be incorporated into democratic projects and processes that also include discussion among more representative samples of the public and with government. We offer design principles for affinity group discussion, which are illustrated by a recent series of dialogues on Facing Racism in a Diverse Nation, organized in the U.S. by Everyday Democracy. Finally, we discuss conditions in which enclave deliberation is most likely to be needed to create equity and suggest an agenda for future research
Framing and power in public deliberation with climate change: Critical reflections on the role of deliberative practitioners
No full textDrawing on the experiences of a deliberative practitioner and critical social scientist involved in the planning, production and implementation of a deliberative initiative on climate change, this paper reflects on nuances of framing and power in practical settings. Decisions about framing, some of them more conscious than others, influence the process of opinion formation among participants as well as the outcomes of the deliberation. Framing enacts power through the selection of deliberative approaches, the viewpoints that are admitted into the procedure, the alternatives that are defined, as well as the solutions that are ultimately proposed. Grounded in reflexivity as a methodological approach, the goal of this analysis is to make the democratization of public responses to climate change more reflexive and open to transformative learning at individual and institutional levels
Ideals of Inclusion in Deliberation
No full textBuilding on prior thinking about political representation in democratic deliberation, we argue for four ideals of inclusion, each of which is most appropriate to a different situation. These principles of inclusion depend not only on the goals of a deliberation, but also on its level of empowerment in the political system, and its openness to all who want to participate. Holistic and open deliberations can most legitimately incorporate and decide for the people as a whole if they are open to all who want to participate and affirmatively recruit perspectives that would be underrepresented otherwise. Chicago Community Policing beat meetings offer an example. Holistic and restricted forums (such as the latter stages of some participatory budgeting processes) should recruit stratified random samples of the demos, but must also ensure that problems of tokenism are overcome by including a critical mass of the least powerful perspectives, so that their views can be aired and heard more fully and effectively. Forums that aim to improve relations between social sectors and peoples should provide open access for all who are affected by the issues (relational and open), if possible, or recruit a stratified random sample of all affected, when necessary (relational and restricted). In either case, proportional representation of the least advantaged perspectives is necessary. However, when deliberation focuses on relations between a disempowered group and the rest of society, or between unequal peoples, it is often most legitimate to over-sample the least powerful and even to create opportunities for the disempowered to deliberate among themselves so that their perspectives can be adequately represented in small and large group discussions. We illustrate this discussion with examples of atypical Deliberative Polls on Australia’s reconciliation with its indigenous community and the Roma ethnic minority in Europe