Building A Deliberative Democracy

Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.

From small-scale experiments, deliberative mini-publics have recently taken a constitutional turn in Europe. Iceland and Ireland have turned to deliberative democracy to reform their constitutions. Estonia, Luxembourg and Romania have also experienced constitutional process in a deliberative mode. In Belgium the G1000, a citizen-led initiative of deliberative democracy, has fostered a wider societal debate about the role and place of citizens in the country's democracy. At the same time, European institutions have introduced different forms of deliberative democracy as a way to connect citizens back in. These empirical cases are emblematic of a possibly constitutional turn in deliberative democracy in Europe. The purpose of this book is to critically assess these developments, bringing together academics involved in the designing of these new forms of constitutional deliberative democracy with the theorists who propagated the ideas and evaluated democratic standards.

Published in Association with and We live in divisive and polarizing times, often remaining in comfortable social bubbles and experiencing few genuine interactions with people who are different or with whom we disagree. Stepping out and turning to one another is difficult but necessary. For our democracy to thrive at a time when we face wicked problems that involve tough trade-offs it is vital that all citizens participate fully in the process. We need to learn to listen, think, and act with others to solve public problems. This collaborative task begins with creating space for democracy. This book provides a guide for doing so on campus through deliberation and dialogue.At the most basic level, this book describes collaborative and relational work to engage with others and co-create meaning. Specifically, dialogue and deliberation are processes in which a diverse group of people moves toward making a collective decision on a difficult public issue.This primer offers a blueprint for achieving the civic mission of higher education by incorporating dialogue and deliberation into learning at colleges and universities. It opens by providing a conceptual framework, with leading voices in the dialogue and deliberation field providing insights on issues pertinent to college campuses, from free speech and academic freedom to neutrality and the role of deliberation in civic engagement. Subsequent sections describe a diverse range of methods and approaches used by several organizations that pioneered and sustained deliberative practices; outline some of the many ways in which educators and institutions are using dialogue and deliberation in curricular, co-curricular, and community spaces, including venues such as student centers, academic libraries, and residence halls. All of the chapters, including a Resource Section, provide readers with a starting point for conceptualizing and implementing their own deliberation and dialogue initiatives.This book, intended for all educators who are concerned about democracy, imparts the power and impact of public talk, offers the insights and experiences of leading practitioners, and provides the grounding to adopt or adapt the models in their own settings to create educative spaces and experiences that are humanizing, authentic, and productive. It is an important resource for campus leaders, student affairs practitioners, librarians, and centers of institutional diversity, community engagement, teaching excellence and service-learning, as well as faculty, particularly those in the fields of communication studies, education, and political science.Click here for more information on AAC&U and Campus Compact.

This volume assesses the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative democracy.

Growing numbers of scholars, practitioners, politicians, and citizens recognize the value of deliberative civic engagement processes that enable citizens and governments to come together in public spaces and engage in constructive dialogue, informed discussion, and decisive deliberation. This book seeks to fill a gap in empirical studies in deliberative democracy by studying the assembly of the Australian Citizens’ Parliament (ACP), which took place in Canberra on February 6–8, 2009. The ACP addressed the question “How can the Australian political system be strengthened to serve us better?” The ACP’s Canberra assembly is the first large-scale, face-to-face deliberative project to be completely audio-recorded and transcribed, enabling an unprecedented level of qualitative and quantitative assessment of participants’ actual spoken discourse. Each chapter reports on different research questions for different purposes to benefit different audiences. Combined, they exhibit how diverse modes of research focused on a single event can enhance both theoretical and practical knowledge about deliberative democracy.

Drawing on political, legal, national, post-national, as well as American and European perspectives, this collection of essays offers a diverse and balanced discussion of the current arguments concerning deliberative democracy. Its contributions' focus on discontent, provide a critical assessment of the benefits of deliberation and also respond to the strongest criticisms of the idea of democratic deliberation. The essays consider the three basic questions of why, how and where to deliberate democratically. This book will be of value not only to political and democratic theorists, but also to legal philosophers and constitutional theorists, and all those interested in the legitimacy of decision-making in national and post-national pluralistic polities.

This book argues that most public affairs can be openly discussed before consensus is reached, and people from different backgrounds should be encouraged to get involved in policy-making on an equal basis. This is considered multiple deliberative democracy. The book features in-depth discussions on why multiple deliberative democracy is needed in China, what specific procedures it entails, and how it is conducted in local communities across the country. In addition, it probes into the areas of public administration where multiple deliberative democracy can be employed to enhance informed decision-making on public affairs, such as community self-governance matters, matters to be voted on by the National People's Congress, collecting CPPCC motions, social organization (or corporation) consultation, vital planning schemes of the society, and citizen education. Furthermore, the monograph explores the pluralism in deliberative democracy, such as mass symposium, citizen (villager) BBS, community Internet BBS, discussions in open areas of the community, “vision workshops”, and citizen jury. It is concluded that thorough deliberation among citizens may profoundly impact the government’s informed-decision-making. The book exposes the readers to the democratic system of modern China and sheds lights on its contextualized, unique multiple deliberative democracy procedures and practices. University students, researchers, and practitioner in the fields of political science, public administration, and international relations, among others, may find this book informative and intriguing.