Deliberative Democracy

1
Deliberative Democracy

• Citizens at center of political process
• More voice-centered than vote-centered
• Citizens play more robust role from local to
  global levels
• in helping set public agenda
• In deciding broad direction for public policy

2
Deliberative Democracy idea that deliberation
dialogue essential

• For
• better and fairer solutions to public problems
• stronger sense of legitimacy for public processes
  institutions
• greater social unity and solidarity in society,
  in general

3
Deliberative Dialogue

• Set of practices for communicating with others
  and addressing common problems and issues. People
  talk about difficult issues not only on the basis
  of knowledge, facts, and professional expertise,
• BUT also
• from perspective of their deeper concerns, values
  personal experience

4
Deliberative Dialogue

• Participants speak
• NOT ONLY as individuals
• BUT also
• As members of a community,
• NOT ONLY as groups with competing interests
• BUT also as
• a community with shared interests, concerns and
  goals.

5

• DD connects you with others in community with
  whom you wouldnt normally interact, and to an
  issue that can often feel too big to influence or
  too impersonal
• DD encourages you to see your personal stake in
  public issues because youre encouraged to draw
  on your own values, concerns and life experiences

6

• Since participants address problems in the
  company of others engaged in the same thing, they
  are able to make stronger connections to others,
  especially with those with whom they might not
  otherwise associate.
• Participants develop a public voice, they are
  transformed by that experience.
• Those who think they are inarticulate are able to
  to speak with more facility about issues in
  public.

7
News insights

• Often something new some new understanding, some
  new insight or idea for acting differently to
  address a problemgets created as a result, an
  idea that no one individual or group of
  individuals had in mind going into the dialogue.

8
Forming issues

• Capture the most important/fundamental concern
  behind the ways in which people see a problem
• GOAL make everyone see him/herself in the
  choices or approaches theyre asked to consider.
• Having choices framed in advance helps
  participants get quickly to the heart of the
  issue, forces them to come to grips with the
  major tensions trade-offs associated with it.
• CHOICES not exhaustive.

9
Goal

• Arrive at better common understanding of issue
  through a thorough examination of the major
  choices we have in relation to it. CREATE COMMON
  GROUND

10
COMMON GROUND

• Created out of discovery of shared concerns
  interests, or at least better understanding
  acceptance of why people hold valuable the things
  they do.
• More than compromise where parties agree to
  disagree split the difference
• Less than consensus where objective is to arrive
  at like-mindedness on an issue

11
Common ground (contd.)

• Common ground is that place (or those places)
  where we see how our goals are shareable, our
  values overlap and our interests intersect with
  those of others. It is the basis for win/win
  solutions to problems, where everyone has had a
  chance to voice her/his concerns and had these
  accommodated to a certain extent in the decisions
  made.

12
Structure

• ground rules listen to each other get beyond
  debating other adversarial forms of
  communication.
• discussion guide range of possible approaches to
  issue.