A Citizens' Jury Study of National Park Management

RF James and RK Blamey.

This report provides information regarding the first of two citizens' juries conducted under this project, the 'Citizens' Juries for Environmental Management: An Alternative to CBA?', funded by the Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation (LWRRDC). The details of establishment and operation of the jury and the content and outcomes of the jury's deliberations are provided.

Resource Link: http://cjp.anu.edu.au/pubs.html

A Dialogue on Foreign Policy: Report to Canadians

Department of Foreign Affairs, Canada, 2003.

The future of Canada's foreign policy lies in building on distinctive advantages in a time of great change and uncertainty. A diverse population makes them a microcosm of the world's peoples; their geography and population give them broad global interests; their economy is the most trade-oriented among the G7 nations; and their relationship with the United States is extensive and deep. With these and other assets, Canadians recognize that they have a unique basis for asserting a distinctive presence in the world. They also believe that in these times of enormous change, Canada must take stock of how they want to approach new and continuing international challenges. To represent the values, interests and aspirations of Canadians as they confront these challenges, their country's foreign policy must draw as broadly as possible on the views of our citizens.

Resource Link: http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/cip-pic/participate/fpd-en.asp

A Guide to Participatory Budgeting

Brian Wampler.

Participatory Budgeting (PB) programs are innovative policymaking processes. Citizens are directly involved in making policy decisions. Forums are held throughout the year so that citizens have the opportunity to allocate resources, prioritize broad social policies, and monitor public spending. These programs are designed incorporate citizens into the policymaking process, spur administrative reform, and distribute public resources to low-income neighborhoods. Download the 32-page guide directly from the NCDD website.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Wampler_PBGuide.pdf

A Planning Tool for Thinking About the Future of the Public Service

Clerk of the Privy Council, 1996.

This document describes the process and the results of the Task Force commissioned by the Clerk of the Privy Council in August 1995. The Task Force used scenario building methodology to look at the future. This process, pioneered by the Royal Dutch Shell Group of companies in the early 1970's and increasingly used by the private and public sectors around the world, is essentially a method of encouraging and facilitating strategic thinking, planning, and dialogue.

Resource Link: http://www.myschool-monecole.gc.ca/Research/publications/pdfs/psfuture.pdf

Adapting systemic consultation practice to public discourse: An analysis of a public conflict episode

Shawn Spano and Claire Calcagno. Human Systems, 7: 17-43, 1996.

Shawn Spano, Ph.D., is a Senior Consultant with the Public Dialogue Consortium, a non-profit group of practitioners devoted to improving the quality of public communication in local communities. In addition to his work with the PDC, Shawn is a Professor in the Communication Studies Department at San Jose State University where he teaches courses and conducts research in public dialogue, interpersonal communication and communication education.

Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue

Barbara Schaffer Bacon, Cheryl Yuen and Pam Korza, Animating Democracy Initiative of Americans for the Arts. Americans for the Arts, 1999.

This report reveals pivotal and innovating roles that the arts can play in the renewal of civic dialogue as well as challenges faced by arts and cultural organizations as they engage in this work.

Resource Link: http://www.artsusa.org/animatingdemocracy

Assessing Deliberation: Setting the Agenda, Implementing Policy, and Outcomes

Lisa-Marie Napoli, Ph.D., Becky Nesbit and Lisa Blomgren Bingham. Submitted to the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, 2006.

This 33-page research report presented at NCDD's 2006 conference examines AmericaSpeaks' 21st Century Town Meeting - one important model for facilitating citizen participation through large scale (100-5,000) dialogue in which citizens come together, listen to each other in a public arena, and make decisions as a collective community. Many researchers ask why there is a gap between scholarship and practice in the field of deliberation; this study responds to the call for empirical testing by examining the AmericaSpeaks model of a 21st Town Meeting. Specifically, this study examines agenda setting, implementation, and outcomes in the context of three different cities where the Town Hall Meetings occurred.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Bingham-AssessingDelibPaper.doc

Assessing Impacts of Citizen Engagement Through Public Deliberation

Sue Williams, Ph.D., Ron C. Powers, Ph.D., Renee Daugherty, Ph.D. and Wendy Petterson.

This PowerPoint Presentation provides an overview of a study to determine the impact of Public Policy Institutes (PPI's) and subsequent local issues forums on fostering citizen engagement through public deliberation.

Resource Link: http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/commdev/pubdelib/REPORTS/powersetal.ppt

Beyond the 'Up or Down' Vote

AmericaSpeaks.

An evaluation of AmericaSpeaks' first national project, Americans Discuss Social Security.

Resource Link: http://www.americaspeaks.org/library/social_sec.pdf

Boston Prochoice and Prolife Leaders Dialogue

The Public Conversations Project.

Read about PCP's groundbreaking 7-year abortion dialogue involving pro-choice and pro-life leaders in the Boston area. PCP has been doing dialogue work with Prochoice and Prolife activists and others since 1989.

Resource Link: http://www.publicconversations.org/pcp/resource_details.php?ref_id=97

Bridging the Racial Divide

Paul Martin Du Bois and Jonathan Hutson, The Center for Living Democracy. Brattleboro, VT: Center for Living Democracy, 1997.

Includes lessons, tips and success stories from 65 intergroup dialogues across the country, plus an annotated reading list of resources. Although this book is no longer available and the Center for Living Democracy has closed its dorrs, it was one of the first books to provide best practices from race dialogues in the U.S. Published at the time of President Clinton's Initiative on Race.

Budgets and Ballots in Brazil: Participatory Budgeting from the City to the State

Aaron Schneider and Ben Goldfrank. Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, Sussex, England, 2002.

Budgeting institutions in the state of Rio Grande do Sul bring participatory democracy to public finance. A chief impact of participatory institutions is to change the relative power of groups within society. In this case, with the Workers' Party in state office, participatory decision-making strengthened lower-class groups interested in redistribution to the poor. Putting participatory budgeting in place was no easy task, however, as it required overcoming the difficulties of incorporating face-to-face decision-making at a scale unprecedented in terms of the number of people and the amount of money at stake.

Resource Link: http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/wp/wp149.pdf

Building a More United America: Final Report of the Uniting America Series

The American Assembly, 2002.

This report provides a summary of the four-year series of national Assemblies in the Uniting America series, and is designed to catalyze a national dialogue on ways to help reverse some of the most divisive forces within American society. The Uniting America series was created to deal with some of the most divisive tensions in our society and move us toward a more united America. Since the horrors of September 11, 2001, our purpose has become even more significant, as many underlying tensions within our society have become obscured by a sense of national unity. As a companion to this report, we have written a manual that offers suggestions for organizing community dialogues.

Resource Link: http://www.americanassembly.org

Building Community Capacity in Evaluating IT Projects: Outcomes of the LEARNERS Project

June Lennie, Greg Hearn, Lyn Simspon, Emma da Silva, Megan Kimber, and Mary Hanrahan. Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre and Service Leadership and Innovation Research Program, Queensland University of Technology, QLD, Australia, 2004.

This report details case studies, findings and outcomes from the LEARNERS project (Learning, Evaluation, Action & Reflection for New technologies, Empowerment and Rural Sustainability), which was conducted from 2001-2004. The project was undertaken in collaboration with two communities in rural Queensland - the Tara and Stanthorpe Shires - and five industry partners. It involved implementing and conducting an ongoing evaluation of a participatory process for evaluating community-based communication and information technology.

Resource Link: http://www.creativeindustries.qut.edu.au/research/documents/learners-report.pdf

Case Study 2 - Porto Alegre, Brazil: Participatory Approaches in Budgeting and Public Expenditure Management

World Bank / World Bank and Participation / Participation Sourcebook, 2003.

This 5-page case study presents a broad review of an experience in Participatory Budgeting introduced by the Workers Party (PT) in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, as part of their agenda of deepening democracy through ?“popular administration?” of government. Having won several municipal elections in 1989, including Sao Paulo with over 10 million people, the PT began a creative experiment of engaging a wide spectrum of people to formulate city budgets. The Porto Alegre case in particular, having been nominated by the 1996 UN Summit on Human Settlements in Istanbul as an exemplary ?‘urban innovation?’, has stood out for demonstrating an efficient practice of democratic resource management.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/PortoAllegra_Case.pdf

Changing the Conversation on Education in Connecticut

Will Friedman. Public Agenda, 2004.

A report on 10 years of public engagement on public education topics in over 75 communities across Connecticut. Supported by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, the report serves as a comprehensive case study of how public engagement can work in communities across America and discusses the specific accomplishments in Connecticut.

Resource Link: http://www.publicagenda.org/pubengage/pdfs/connecticut_public_engagement_2005.pdf

Charrette ends with plan for village

Melissa Maracle, Staff writer. Franklin Press (Macon County, Georgia), 2007.

This article provides a nice overview of New Urbanism, and of how charrettes were used in a Georgia town.

Choice Work Dialogues: Fostering Public Engagement on Growth in Orange County

Viewpoint Learning, Inc., 2002.

Public learning is traditionally perceived as a one-way distribution of knowledge. In this 22-page presentation, the authors challenge that notion as incomplete, citing a wealth of flawed assumptions in the traditional model. When citizens engage in collaborative or deliberative discussions, they often learn from each other in ways differing from the traditional. The experience in Orange County, California shows the worth of the new model and provides lessons for future efforts for public engagement.

Resource Link: http://www.regionalstewardship.org/Documents/ChoiceWorkDialogues.pdf

Citizens and Public Deliberation Workshop

A collaborative project of the Council on Public Policy Education (CPPE), the Inter American Foundation (IAF), and the Inter-American Democracy Network (IADN). Kettering Foundation, 2003.

The 10 initiatives (case studies) represented here present a great opportunity for learning. In varying ways they reflect the shared view that long-run economic well-being in a community is critically affected by the qualities of the practices through which decisions on issues related to economic performance are made. Thus the community itself can be seen as an economic resource. If so, local development projects, aside from their inherent merits, can be seen as catalysts for the long-term development of civic decision-making capacity. This document also serves as a schedule for the Citizens and Public Deliberation Workshop at the Kettering Foundation.

Resource Link: http://www.publicpolicy-educouncil.org/pdf/CPD_W-shop_English_9_3.pdf

Civil Dialogue: Making It Work Better

Elodie Fazi and Jeremy Smith. Study commissioned by the Civil Society Contact Group, 2006.

NGOs play a growing role in shaping the EU project through their participation in a "civil dialogue" with the EU institutions. After several decades of involvement in the European project, the time came for a common reflection on how to make this dialogue between EU and its citizens work better. This study is based on an overview of dialogue with EU institutions and on case studies with a particular focus on national NGOs?’ involvement, and looks at the practice of dialogue between NGOs and EU institutions, reviewing what works and what doesn?’t, and making recommendations for change.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Civil_Dialogue.pdf