A Report on CPRN?’s Community Forum: "Integrating Citizens' Voices into Policy Discourse"

Sandra Zagon. Canadian Policy Research Networks.

CPRN's Public Involvement Network hosted a community forum at a 2003 IAP2 conference. 33 delegates from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. heard from CPRN presenters the lessons of CPRN's growing experience in the practice of public dialogues. The Community Forums, which were part of the May 2003 IAP2 conference program, gave CPRN an excellent opportunity to share some of these lessons with over 30 public participation practitioners who were delegates at the Conference. CPRN's Community Forum took place on May 21, 2003, from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m.

Resource Link: http://www.cprn.com/en/doc.cfm?doc=341

An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design

Todd Davies, Brendan O'Connor, Alex Angiolillo Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat.

This paper elucidates the experience and thinking behind our new web-based environment for asynchronous group deliberation: Deme (pronounced 'deem'). Deme grew out of participation in and observations of group decision making and community democracy, and is being developed within a university-community partnership to enhance civic participation and to bridge digital divides.

Resource Link: http://www.stanford.edu/~davies/deme-principles.pdf

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

Beyond the Comfort Zone: Honest Conversations on Race, Reconciliation and Responsibility

Rob Corcoran, Hope in the Cities.

This paper was presented at a national forum on Building Constructive Frameworks for Improving Ethnic Relations: Best Practices Here and Abroad 50 Years After Brown, hosted by the University of Denver, August 19-21, 2004.

Resource Link: http://www.iofc.org/en/programmes/hic/resources/papers/824.html

Beyond the Vocal Few: Ideas To Encourage Broader Public Participation In Your Community

This 2-page document was used as a handout for the workshop entitled "Collaborative Governance in Local Government: Choosing Practice Models and Assessing Experience" given by Terry Amsler, Lisa Blomgren Bingham, and Malka Kopell at the 2006 NCDD Conference. The handout offers suggestions for achieving better representation in public involvement and civic engagement efforts that were compiled by the Institute for Local Government?’s Collaborative Governance Initiative.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Beyond_Vocal_Few.doc

Citizen Participation and Social Inclusion Procedures in Santo Andre, Brazil: Participatory Budgeting and City of the Future Project

Cid Blanco Jr. Presentation delivered at the World Bank Urban Research Symposium in Washington, D.C., December, 2002.

This presentation provides an overview of the research done on participatory budgeting in Santo Andre, Brazil. The author proposes to analyze different aspects of the budgeting, as well as look for opportunities for both positive and negative lessons-learned. The author deals with many challenges that face participatory budgeting and suggests some steps to take in further research and development of new practice.

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

Collaborative Governance in Local Government: Choosing Practice Models and Assessing Experience

This workshop at NCDD's 2006 conference addressed how civic engagement practitioners can assist local governments in thinking systematically about and choosing among the various forms of civic engagement in public decision-making, and here is where you can find all five handouts/presentations that from this popular session.

Complexity, Politics, Policy and People

Mary Pat MacKinnon. Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN), 2007.

This PowerPoint presentation offers insights on how a process of deliberative dialogue was used in Canada by the Advisory Panel on Fiscal Imbalance (Council of the Federation) as part of its consultative process on how to better share funds between governments. The presentation describes the dialogue process and the resulting roadmap citizens provided to decision-makers in working through how to address this politicized issue of sharing funds. It shows how engagement can be effective in identifying citizen solutions that reflect an understanding and appreciation of the policy challenges. MacKinnon?’s presentation was made to a session, "Using Citizen Deliberation to Tackle Health Care Reform and Fiscal Imbalance," at the 2007 Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation.

Resource Link: http://www.cprn.org/doc.cfm?doc=1797&l=e

Core Principles of Dialogue and "The Dialogic Approach"

This workshop at the 2006 NCDD conference was presented by Bettye Pruitt and Philip Thomas - co-authors of "Democratic Dialogue: A Handbook for Practitioners." They presented two concepts central to the Handbook: a definition of dialogue based on five core principles (inclusiveness, empowerment, learning, humanity, long-term perspective); and "the dialogic approach," an operational "code of conduct" for practitioners derived from those principles.

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

Creating Meaningful Dialogue at Arts Events: Getting beyond Q & A, testimonial, art critique, or soapbox oratory!

Excerpted from Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy by Pam Korza, Barbara Schaffer Bacon, and Andrea Assaf. Washington, D.C.: Americans for the Arts, 2005.

This great 2-page handout was created for a workshop at NCDD's 2006 conference called "Inquiring Minds Want to Know: What Do the Arts Have to Do With Dialogue?" Presenters Leah Lamb, Ellen Schneider, and Pam Korza list challenges, offer strategies for effectively engaging audiences in civic dialogue at arts events, provide examples of how dialogue professionals can learn to incorporate art to support their dialogue goals, and more.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/DialogueAtArtsEvents.doc

Creating Social Capital Through the Deliberative Discussion: A Case Study of Community Dialogue

David Stein, Susan Imel, and Thyrone Henderson. Presented at the Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, October 6-8, 2004.

When citizens come together to inquire about issues that matter to the community, learning may occur in these temporary learning communities. Active engagement with issues of social and political importance may increase the adult's sense of commitment to action and further the development of a community's social capital. Using a social capital development framework, this case describes one community's attempt to promote and encourage citizens to engage in deliberative discussion. The case also highlights one citizen's struggle to link discourse with community action.

Resource Link: http://www.iupui.edu/~adulted/mwr2p/program/Proceedings/SteinImelHenderson.pdf

Dialogue and Systems Thinking: Building a bridge for the practitioner

John G. Bell, Antioch University Seattle and Robin R. Fenske, The Evergreen State College. This paper was submitted to and presented at NCDD's 2004 conference in Denver, Colorado..

Systems thinking is a way of mapping diverse opinions and exploring that territory. The tools of systemic thinking provide the breadcrumb trail that mark the dialogical practitioner's journey. This journey is a process that happens within a complex self-organizing system that enables people's multi-modal engagement, in multiple ways on multiple levels.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/DialogueAndSystems.doc

Dialogue as Pedagogy: Deliberative Learning with Democracy Lab in High School and College Classes

James T Knauer, PhD and Paul Alexander, PhD.

This 10-page document was distributed during Jim Knauer and Paul Alexander's workshop of the same name at the 2006 NCDD Conference in San Francisco. Deliberative dialogue can be used across the curriculum to integrate civic education without sacrificing disciplinary content or traditional learning objectives. The document not only outlines Democracy Lab (an online deliberation program for college students) and where it is headed, it also outlines existing research on dialogic pedagogy, describes William Perry's Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development, and explores the relationship between deliberative dialogue and learning.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Dialogic_Pedagogy_Handout.doc

Dialogue Guide and Workbook for "Afraid of the Dark"

Gwendolyn Grant and Jim Myers.

Gwendolyn Grant of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City created this dialogue guide and workbook to accompany Jim Myers' groundbreaking book "Afraid of the Dark: What Whites and Blacks Need to Know About Each Other." According to Grant, "Afraid of the Dark defines with such clarity and simplicity so many of the issues that have created this gulf between blacks and whites. It brings to the forefront the stuff that we talk about within our black and white circles, but seldom, if ever across the color line." Grant distributed this 12-page resource during her well-received workshop at the 2006 NCDD conference in San Francisco.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Grant-AfraidOfDark.doc

Embedded Deliberation: Entrepreneurs, Organizations, and Public Action

Elena Fagotto and Archon Fung. Final Report for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, submitted by the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. April 14, 2006.

This very meaty 151-page final report to the Hewlett Foundation includes detailed case studies on West Virginia?’s National Issues Forums, Public Deliberation in South Dakota, Public Deliberation in Hawai?’i, and Connecticut?’s Community Conversations about Education. Elena Fagotto presented a workshop on her research at NCDD's 2006 conference called "Embedded Deliberation: Moving from Deliberation to Action." She decided to share the report with the NCDD community since many of her workshop participants requested it.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/FagottoFung-EmbedDelib.pdf

Embedding Dialogue on a University Campus

Many institutions of higher education use dialogue as a communication tool to engage and involve the campus community itself as well as surrounding communities. This workshop at NCDD's 2006 conference focused on how three institutions have begun to integrate and embed the process of dialogue into university life - and here is where you can find all six handouts from this well-received session.

Evaluating Public Engagement: Deliberative Democracy and the Science Museum

Angie Boyce and Christine Reich. This paper was submitted to and presented at NCDD's 2004 conference in Denver, Colorado. Museum of Science, Boston, 2004.

This 7-page paper reviews evaluation tools and methodologies in the dialogue and deliberation field and reflects upon how these strategies can be applied to the museum context. Can the museum be an effective space for dialogue and deliberation?

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Boyce-EvaluatingPE.doc

Evaluating Public Participation Programs - One evaluator's experience

Jane Cooper, Cooper & Associates Research.

This 21-page PDF document is from a presentation given by Jane Cooper at the February 6, 2003 Workshop on Evaluation of Public Involvement Activities.

Resource Link: http://www.cprn.org/documents/20818_en.pdf

Fighting Urban Poverty: Which Participatory Approaches?

World Urban Forum III / United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance (UNPAN), 2006.

This report summarizes a panel held during a side event of the third annual World Urban Forum in Vancouver, Canada, June 2005. Due to the rapid urbanization of poverty, the focus was on issues relating to approaches, methodologies, tools and techniques that are relevant to participatory methods in tackling this growing phenomenon.

Resource Link: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN024789.pdf

From Dialogue to Action: Paying the Democratic Deficit in Venezuela

Jay Hartling and Laura Wells.

This 31-page PDF was used to guide Jay Hartling and Laura Wells' well-received workshop at NCDD's 2006 conference in San Francisco. The lively lecture-style presentation and discussion examined action beyond dialogue, and the intersection of state institutions, civil society organizations and neighborhoods through preliminary research on the implementation of Venezuela's new Law of Communal Councils. Presenters discussed the convergence of political will and pressure from grassroots communities to support a bold shift to a truly participatory democracy. The session also shared information on different approaches to democracy in other regions of the globe, particularly the global south.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Hartling_DtoA-venezuela.pdf