Apply for the “Best Practices in Citizen Participation” Distinction

We want to make sure that NCDD members and member organizations hear about an exciting award you might be eligible for – the 8th “Best Practices in Citizen Participation” Distinction. The initiative for the award comes from The International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (OIDP or IOPD for short – their interchangeable, multi-lingual acronym), an important international body that NCDD belongs to as a member.

The awarding of the “Best Practices in Citizen Participation” distinction

…is meant to provide incentive for those who wish to initiate innovative experiences at the local level and disseminate those practices that facilitate the participation and involvement of citizens in elaborating and implementing public policies.

This award is meant to recognize those innovative experiences and ideas coordinated by local governments in the field of participative democracy that can to be replicated elsewhere.

It is understood that participative processes should, by necessity, lead to higher levels of equality, a stronger sense of citizenship, a greater sense of legitimacy and confidence in public powers, and greater effectiveness in public management practice.

You can find the full eligibility criteria by clicking here, but competition is open to

…all local governments, municipal entities and extra-municipal entities that are OIDP members and have promoted an experience or idea involving citizen participation. All such experiences must have taken place within a maximum of four years preceding the convocation, and they must be in effect by the time the candidacy presentation is mailed.

The application period goes from February 3rd to March 7th, so don’t wait to get started. The award winners will be announced at the 2014 OIDP Conference this June 3rd – 5th in Canoas, Brazil. We hope that some of you NCDDers will submit your projects and initiatives for consideration!

If you haven’t heard about the OIDP yet, we highly encourage you to check out their English website at www.OIDP.net/en. You can also find them on Facebook. The OIDP describes itself this way:

The International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (IOPD) is a space open to all cities in the world and all associations, organizations and research centers interested in learning about, exchanging impressions and applying experiences of participatory democracy on a local scale with the aim of deepening the roots of democracy in municipal government.

The network was created in 2001 within the framework of the European Commission’s URB-AL programme for decentralized cooperation. It was officially constituted in November 2001 during the 1st Annual Conference of the IOPD in Barcelona, where its internal operating regulations were approved. Since 2006 the IOPD has coordinated with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), at present the IOPD is contributing to provide local government’s innovative knowledge in the specific area of citizens’ participation.

In November 2011 the IOPD decided to recover and place emphasis on its original goal of becoming a space for the production of knowledge and the exchange of useful experiences for the towns and cities that make up the network. Therefore the IOPD assumed the challenge of serving as a reflection in matters of participatory democracy at a worldwide level, in order to innovate and to recommend specific policies to public administrations, preferably local, throughout the world and to make the exchange of experiences its main working base.

We think it would be great to see more NCDD members become part of the OIDP – not to mention that you have to be a member to enter the competition – so we encourage you to check out their How to Join page and consider applying. We know that our members are undertaking some of the most innovative and successful public participation projects around, and that we can give any of the other entrants a good run for their money.

Please do let us know if you decide to apply, and best of luck to all of those in the competition!

Secret Diary of a Gentrifier

I think a lot about gentrification.

As Wikipedia describes it:
Gentrification is a shift in an urban community toward wealthier residents and/or businesses and increasing property values,[1] sometimes to the detriment[citation needed] of the poorer residents of the community.

I went with a Wikipedia definition on this one because there’s something intriguing about that little [citation needed] superscripted to the idea that gentrification hurts poor people.

Gentrification is a complex, and often controversial, issue.

Not so hot that the Wikipedia article is locked to prevent abuse or dramatization, but controversial enough that [citation needed] reads to me like a snarky, “Yeah? Prove it, buddy.”

Today, a community voices article from my hometown (holllla!) has been making it’s way around the web. 20 ways to not be a gentrifier in Oakland is a positive article articulating the ways that “outsiders” can move to a community without becoming gentrifiers.

“…it isn’t the mere act of moving into a neighborhood that makes you a gentrifier; it’s what you do once you get there,” the article opens before delving into tips for how to really appreciate a community for what it is and to understand and appreciate your neighbors.

And all of that is great. Whether in Oakland or beyond, new people moving into a community should be thinking in terms of community assets. They should see the strength and spirit of a place and understand why the locals scrawl Oakland Pride with spray paint under the overpasses.

And while its great to have such a welcoming attitude, I’m not sure I agree that “it isn’t the mere act of moving into a neighborhood that makes you a gentrifier.”

I was struck by that comment, particularly since this article is from Oakland.

I was born and raised in Oakland, CA. If I hadn’t stolen away to go to school in Massachusetts, I’d be a fifth generation Oaklander. My mother still lives there. My grandparents had a bakery – over on High Street, if I’m getting my history right.

I love the city. I know its sights, sounds, and smells. I’ve seen its dark corners and its bright days. I’ve talked smack about San Francisco and dominated anyone who ever breathed a word putting us down.

If I lived in Oakland, I would be a local. With deep roots and authentic passion. If I lived in Oakland, I’d do everything on the “20 ways” list, and possibly a few more. If I lived in Oakland, no one could call me a newcomer.

But if I lived in Oakland, I would be a gentrifier.

With my middle class and my East Coast airs.

I’d love the city and appreciate the city, and arguably I’d belong in the city. But I’d still add to rising rents and growing costs, eventually forcing my neighbors from their homes.

It’s okay that I’ve grown the way I have. And I hope it’s okay that I’ve found a new community to make my home. But the truth is I’m gentrifying Somerville just as I’d gentrify Oakland.

Living the American dream, perhaps, but at the cost of whom?

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what happens if EU members overturn their democracies?

I’ve had several moving conversations recently with democratic reformers from southeastern Europe. They are near despair about their respective countries. Instead of quoting their confidential assessments, I’ll cite this summary by Tamas Dezso Czigler of LSE:

I have previously written a great deal about Hungary; the latest development is that the government has changed the election rules once more, and introduced the anti-democratic pre-registration of voters, which further heavily distorts the election system. The government also continues to fire judges, even though the act which made this available was annulled by the Constitutional Court. In Romania, the problems are similar and obvious – the government simply does not respect democratic institutions like the Constitutional Court or the President.

Both Hungary and Slovakia have seen the possibly racially motivated murders of Roma in recent years (including children). In addition, Slovakia has introduced a heavily anti-democratic language act, which bans Hungarians from speaking Hungarian in government offices, even if the client and the officer both belong to the Hungarian minority. … There are also fears as to whether Croatia will be able to stay stable, since it has had an even darker history compared to the others. And we hear news about extreme corruption in Bulgaria every day.

Czigler does not happen to mention the strongly anti-Semitic rhetoric in Hungary and Romania. That isn’t the primary issue; I think Jewish residents will be safe against outright violence, and they are few. He is right to highlight the murders of Roma. However, given the historical role of anti-Semitism in this region, it is distressing that explicitly anti-Semitic parties can capture large shares of the vote. This is a sign of deeply anti-democratic and illiberal tendencies.

I would be the first to recognize that US states have also passed “anti-democratic pre-registration” provisions and laws targeting language minorities. But the question is not whose democracy is better. The question is what to do about anti-democratic threats in Europe, given the fragility of the continental system and the importance (to the whole world) of making it work.

Thus I wonder:

A nation must be a democracy to get into the EU. Once it’s in, what happens if it backtracks so that it would no longer meet the specific political criteria for membership? And what happens if a member drops all pretense of democracy and goes the way of Belarus?

EU members face judicial review at the European level. But the governments in Romania and Hungary are contemptuous of their own nations’ courts. What happens if EU members simply ignore the European Court of Human Rights?

I am told that some Hungarian Jewish families have fled to Austria. If true, it implies that there are already refugees of one EU nation in another one. How would the EU handle larger flows of political refugees?

The anti-democratic parties are mostly far-right and nationalistic. That may make coordination somewhat difficult, because a Greek nationalist doesn’t intrinsically care about Hungarian nationalism, for instance. In the 1930s, the attempt to build a Fascist International “was marred by serious conflicts between the participants.” Yet the far right of the various EU member states have common enemies and can do a lot of mischief together. Will they unite?

At least in Romania and Bulgaria, an underlying cause appears to be corruption, meaning the political power of economic oligarchs. Can European economic policy constrain them?

Will the EU ultimately make its weakest members more democratic and liberal, or will those states make the EU as a whole more authoritarian and illiberal?

How do members with deep civic traditions but poor current systems of government (Italy, Belgium) fit into the picture?

The post what happens if EU members overturn their democracies? appeared first on Peter Levine.

A Skeptic’s Notes on Deliberative Dialogue

Is equality in dialogue possible?

I had scribbled in the margins of an article on deliberative dialogue which I re-read this morning.

Apparently, I’d been feeling quite skeptical on first read since additional scrawls included:
How do you socialize people to be prepared for engagement? Listening to stupid opinions, being patient.

And perhaps worse:
Is there something elitist in saying “we know public deliberation is best for you?”

I don’t always feel that skeptical. I am, in general, quite in favor of deliberation and would most certainly put it in my mental list of Good Things. And I love the romantic notion that if we were all just a little more open to each other’s views, all a little more prepared to listen thoughtfully, and if we were all more frequently blessed with fabulous facilitation and intentional meeting design – then our deliberative democracy would be something quite awesome to behold.

But I’ve also been battle scarred by poorly facilitated meetings. I’ve seen too many opportunists sure to have their say, and too many disempowered members who don’t think they have anything worth saying. I’ve seen meetings scheduled when “the people” can’t make it, and meetings not offered in the language of a neighborhood.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to a lot of great meetings as well – I love meetings, to be honest. But I’ve seen enough to be, at times at least, deeply skeptical of the ideal – of the “romantic notion” as I called it above.

Today, if you’ll allow, I’d like to explore that skeptism.

Is equality in dialogue possible?

In many ways, my skepticism comes down to that question. The classic example is the bombastic orator determined to make their point and dominate the meeting. This archetype can be troublesome, no doubt, but personally, this is not my top concern. I have confidence in a skilled facilitator’s ability to manage that.

More troublesome to me is the language barrier. I’ve been to meetings run in English and interpreted in Spanish and meetings run in Spanish and interpreted in English. For someone who is not bilingual, I can say clearly that the experience is not the same.

Facilitation can help with this – making sure the interpretation is simultaneous and there are sufficient pauses for those in the non-dominant language to jump in. But even with great facilitation, language barriers are likely to damper someone’s involvement. So at best, it seems like a matter of rotating a group’s dominant language. The alternate solution of keeping groups monolingual is clearly fraught with other challenges.

Multilingual meetings also require a different sense of time planning then most of us are used to – the reality is that having successful multilingual meetings slows conversation down. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing – in fact, I’d argue that most conversations would benefit from slowing down. So, language barriers are a challenge, but they too seem surmountable.

What worries me most is the baggage that participants come in with. Not only the meeting-dominator, who surely has something complex going on up there, but all the other participants, too.

The person who is tired from a long day or who is hungry from skipping lunch isn’t going to be able to participate fully. The person who’s loved one is in the hospital or who has a major deadline the next day isn’t going to be able to participate fully.

And the person who’s grown accustomed to being silent – who’s confident they have nothing to say, and that their presence is of little to no value – won’t be able to participate fully either.

And, this of course, is assuming those people show up in the first place.

A facilitator can help with some of this – making sure everyone has a chance to speak, engaging everyone in the conversation. But at the end of the day, it’s often not enough. The baggage you bring in with you is the biggest obstacle to your full participation and nobody else can change that for you.

So I worry about those folks, and sometimes I get skeptical.

But I’m not always skeptical. Today, for example, under my earlier note of:
Is equality in dialogue possible?

I added, after a moment’s pause:
Does it matter if it’s not?

Perhaps it’s just the worst form of government…except for all the others.

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New Report: Engaging Citizens in Co-Creation in Public Services

Participedians may be interested in a new report from the IBM Center for The Business of Government. The report is entitled: ‘Engaging Citizens in Co-Creation in Public Services’. The authors, Satish Nambisan and Priya Nambisan, present four roles that citizens can play in the co-creation of public services.

Democracy in schools: Albert Dzur talks with principal Donnan Stoicovy

Albert Dzur is breaking ground in political theory by revealing how professionals who interact with laypeople can create valuable democratic practices. Democratic theory has generally been blind to the positive potential of work sites, and especially public sector sites such as schools, hospitals, and courtrooms. It has also generally overlooked the democratic contributions of professionals who choose to engage citizens. Often, populist democrats want to trim the wings of professionals, seeing them as arrogant. But engaging citizens in complex institutions requires skill, dedication, and a kind of expertise–all marks of professionalism. Democratic professionalism is thus an important aspect of civic renewal. (See also “Albert Dzur and democracy inside institutions” and “Public Work and Democratic Professionalism.“)

In the The Good Society (which is now the journal of civic studies), Albert has posted an interview with one such democratic professional, Donnan Stoicovy, who is the principal of Park Forest Elementary School in Pennsylvania. For my friends who are interested in civic education and school reform more than political theory, this interview offers a nice overview of a school-wide intervention. It is not unique or unprecedented, but it is thoughtful and impressive. In essence, the principal asked her whole student body to participate in the writing of a school constitution as a way of meeting the state’s mandate to produce a “school-wide positive behavior plan.”

In other schools, administrators hold assemblies and hand out rewards to well-behaved individuals. At Park Forest, the assemblies were deliberative events aimed at setting rules and norms. As I have observed in other cases as well, the kids came up with more demanding rules than their teachers would have proposed.

This case exemplifies professionalism in several respects. One that I would highlight is the need to navigate tricky tradeoffs. The kids’ rules included “No Put Downs” but also “Speak what we believe and not be judged for it.” Sometimes what we believe comes across as a put down of someone else, especially when the individuals in question are ten years old. Skillfully navigating those tensions is complex work.

The interview ends with some discussion of expanding the scale of such examples. Stoicovy cites limited time as one obstacle; “and I think the other [need] is opportunity to collaborate with other people across the country—similar people who are thinking about this.”

Dzur asks whether universities could help. Stoicovy replies:

I would want everybody to know about democratic schools. I would want universities to be teaching more about democratic schools, in general. I would like more of the work at universities to be helping open students’ minds to thinking about having a responsive classroom, eliciting student voice and engaging students in their school. Not just “here’s what discipline is.” And oftentimes they don’t even teach that until they end up in school and it is modeled for them by whoever their mentor is. Universities need to go back to essential questions like “What is the purpose of public education?”

Universities could also model a more democratic approach. Some of them are getting better at having more engagement work, but without modeling it is hard to open peoples’ minds.

The post Democracy in schools: Albert Dzur talks with principal Donnan Stoicovy appeared first on Peter Levine.

Sixth Annual Summer Institute of Civic Studies

I am excited to share an announcement from NCDD supporting member Dr. Peter Levine about what has become an powerful tradition in our field – the Summer Institute of Civic Studies. I personally participated in the institute two years ago, and it was a pivotal experience for me that I highly recommend to anyone interested in a deeper understanding of citizenship and civic engagement.

We also encourage you to consider attending the Frontiers of Democracy conference directly after the Summer Institute. Both are wonderful experiences and great chances to network with leaders on the cutting edge of civic innovation. Find out more below or at the Summer Institute website.


Tufts-logoThe sixth annual Summer Institute of Civic Studies will be an intensive, two-week, interdisciplinary seminar bringing together advanced graduate students, faculty, and practitioners from diverse fields of study.

Organized by Peter Levine, Tisch College, and Karol Sołtan, University of Maryland, the Summer Institute features guest seminars by distinguished colleagues from various institutions and engages participants in challenging discussions such as:

  • What kinds of citizens (if any) do good regimes need?
  • What should such citizens know, believe, and do?
  • What practices and institutional structures promote the right kinds of citizenship?
  • What ought to be the relationships among empirical evidence, ethics, and strategy?

The syllabus for the fifth annual seminar (in 2013) is here. The 2014 syllabus will be modified but will largely follow this outline. You can also read more about the motivation for the Institute in this overview page on civic studies.

The daily sessions will take place from July 7-17, 2014, at the Tufts campus in Medford, MA. The seminar will be followed by a public conference – “Frontiers of Democracy 2014” – that will conclude on July 18 at 6 pm. Participants in the institute are required to stay for the public conference. See information on the 2013 conference here.

Tuition for the Institute is free, but students are responsible for their own housing and transportation. A Tufts University dormitory room can be rented for $230-$280/week. Credit is not automatically offered but special arrangements for graduate credit may be possible.

To apply for the 2014 seminar, please send an email with an explanation of your background and interests plus a resume/CV and a graduate transcript to Peter Levine (peter.levine@tufts.edu). For best consideration, apply no later than March 15, 2014.

For more information, visit http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/civic-studies/summer-institute.

Area man cares, nobody listens

Perhaps because I’ve been thinking so much about the intersections of individuality, dialogue, and democracy this week, I was struck this morning by the Onion headline: Dad Delivers State Of The Union Rebuttal Directly Into Television Screen. As the article says:

Reiterating numerous themes from last year’s rebuttal while offering several searing critiques of tonight’s speech, area dad Bill Shaw delivered his official response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address tonight directly into the television screen…squaring his body toward the front of the family room and looking directly into the television set as he delivered his impassioned thoughts on the issues of immigration, health care, the middle class, China, that holier-than-thou look Obama always has on his face, and the Toyota Prius. 

Satire though this may be, I was struck by the simultaneous passion and disconnection the Onion effortlessly captures in this piece.

Conventional wisdom indicates that most Americans these days are apolitical. That they’re too wrapped up in their personal lives, too disillusioned, or – less charitably – too stupid to pay attention or care about politics.

But that’s not really true. Well, too disillusioned, maybe, but I’d argue most people care nonetheless.

I can so clearly imagine this man – perhaps it is me – watching the State of the Union, talking to his TV screen, and then…doing nothing.

If talk is cheap, then talk without an audience is definitely worth little.

I can’t help but wonder if this fictional “area man” shared shared his SOTU rebuttal with anyone else. Did he talk about it with his coworkers the next day? Discuss the issues with strangers at the bus stop? Raise his voice at a public meeting?

Probably not.

He may care passionately, but he only shares that passion in the privacy of his own home. Impassioned thoughts to an empty box.

If this sense of isolated enthusiasm is a phenomena broader than a fake man in a fake paper, it points to a bigger issue – a different issue – than simple disengagement.

As a society, we lack genuine public spaces to voice these personal rebuttals, to raise our questions and concerns, to challenge those in power, to ask hard questions and find collective solutions.

We have some forums, of course – brick and mortar, and digital – but those forums aren’t open to everybody.

Perhaps more importantly, not everyone is taught that they belong in those forums. Not everyone is taught that they should have a voice in public affairs. Not everyone is taught that their rebuttal should be heard beyond the hollow confines of their living room.

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the president on citizenship: all rhetoric?

In all of his high-profile official speeches, President Obama makes sure to speak strongly and explicitly about active citizenship as the solution to our national problems. I like to highlight and analyze these passages because reporters always completely ignore them, treating them as mere throat-clearing. (See, e.g., my piece on “Taking the President Seriously About Citizenship” in Huffington Post.)

Last night was no exception. The president opened with examples of active citizens in both the public sector and the private sector: “Today in America, a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it, and did her part to lift America’s graduation rate to its highest level in more than three decades. An entrepreneur flipped on the lights in her tech startup, and did her part to add to the more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years.” He added, “it is you, our citizens, who make the state of our union strong.”

President Obama then contrasted constructive citizens with the dysfunctional political system in DC. In the middle of the speech, he returned to the citizenship theme with a series of anaphoric paragraphs: “Citizenship means … Citizenship means. … Citizenship demands a sense of common cause; participation in the hard work of self-government; an obligation to serve to our communities.”

The problem is a gap between this expansive notion of citizenship and the policy agenda. For example, in k-12 and higher education, many wonderful educators and administrators are busy teaching students to be active citizens and trying to make their institutions into more valuable elements of local civil society. They have some friends inside the Obama Administration’s Department of Education. But the education agenda that the president summarized was exclusively about aligning school and college to current job requirements:

Teachers and principals in schools from Tennessee to Washington, D.C. are making big strides in preparing students with skills for the new economy – problem solving, critical thinking, science, technology, engineering, and math.  …

We’re working to redesign high schools and partner them with colleges and employers that offer the real-world education and hands-on training that can lead directly to a job and career.  We’re shaking up our system of higher education to give parents more information, and colleges more incentives to offer better value, so that no middle-class kid is priced out of a college education.

(The information that prospective students are being offered is limited to the cost of a degree, the likelihood of graduation, and employment rates of graduates.)

To be sure, work is not separate from citizenship. The president was right to characterize private and public sector workers as citizens. “Through hard work and responsibility, we can pursue our individual dreams, but still come together as one American family to make sure the next generation can pursue its dreams as well.” Still, workers and future workers must learn about and discuss common social issues. That implies an explicit focus on civics in schools and colleges and opportunities for adult citizens to make decisions together. Those ideas were missing in the State of the Union and have been largely overlooked in the administration’s actual policymaking.

The post the president on citizenship: all rhetoric? appeared first on Peter Levine.

How Iceland Changed the Way We Think About the World

We are pleased to highlight the post below, which came from NCDD member David Inman of Wilma’s Wish Productions. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Then you’re invited to use our Submit to Blog form to share your news post on the NCDD Blog. Click here to find out more!


Jaws dropped around the world when the Icelandic banking system collapsed in 2008. One of the biggest success stories of western industrialization, Iceland’s economy was seen as both stable and affluent. Then the three main privately owned banks crumbled, taking just about everyone in the small, 300,000 person population with them. Tears fell to the ground and hands flew to the air as a vibrant indignation beat through the streets of Reykjavik in protest against the hidden, faulted government regulation of the banking system. The Prime Minister was forced to resign, a new government stepped in, and the entire population was at risk of losing hope.

Shortly thereafter, something incredible happened.

The population surged and moved mountains. Dialogue facilitated the propagation of a constitutional assembly. Dialogue between laymen, professionals, farmers, businessmen, theologians, truck drivers. Dialogue spanning the entire swath of societal positions. Conversations at home, in small groups, abroad, in loudly populated meeting halls. Dialogue.

With a population half the size of Seattle alone, Iceland’s dialogue probably doesn’t seem such a huge feat. Yet considering the range and application, the grandeur of what was happening became an astoundingly unique phenomenon. Together, Iceland’s population organized an assembly to draft a new constitution for their country. The old constitution, an adaptation of the Danish one that once governed Iceland as a colony, was adopted in the late 1940′s and proved incapable of adapting to the issues of current day society. With the banking collapse and the opaque operations of the old government, a new document which truly reflected the needs and cares of the people urgently weighed on the minds and hearts of all. Though facing skepticism and doubt, the assembly formed.

The documentary Blueberry Soup explains the feasibility of Iceland’s project a bit more. In a country where one in ten people are published authors, public arts and education is a passionate value, and in which the term “community” is in every sense of the word sincere, the incorporation of the population’s input was a natural step. But obstacles persisted. Disillusionment. Hopelessness. Frustration. Political opposition. Even anger over the attempt to fix anything fearfully based in concern that the assembly would add salt to the wound and make the population more dejected. Alongside these problems lay the entrenched reluctance of national news sources to report upon the assembly. Indeed, many members of the population didn’t even know what was happening until it was nearly done and over with.

Through dogmatic effort and constant reassurance from interested people around the world the assembly beat on and finished their draft within four and a half months. Tireless days spent hashing out ideas, examining comments from all over the country, and bringing diverse perspectives together in dialogue saw them to the end of the project. The only thing left to do in order for it to be ratified was pass it in a vote. Both the majority of the population as well as the parliament had to vote yes in order to institutionalize the new constitution. Tension was high. The population of Iceland voted ‘yes.’ The parliament voted ‘no.’ Never before seen by the world, the first binding social contract propagated through outreach, social media, and crowd sourcing failed to pass. And yet it was not a failure, not quite.

What astounded me upon watching the documentary for the first time and then later interviewing Eileen Jerrett, the director of Wilma’s Wish Productions, was the fact that, realistically, there was only a victory. Legitimized by its failure, the new constitution displayed the blaring faction between the Icelandic government and the population. People weren’t being listened to, commerce replaced citizenship, and the need for inter-professional dialogue became all the more pressing.

For us, the dialogue community both here and abroad, the effort of Iceland to draft a new constitution ought not go unnoticed. Demonstrating the vast, successful potential of social media to reach a broad audience and facilitate meaningful dialogue Iceland functions as a microcosmic example of what may successfully occur in the United Sates. Albeit privileged with a much smaller population that is rudimentarily grounded in civic involvement, Iceland’s efforts are not without potential for replication. But how might such efforts be reproduced? In what way can dialogue be made accessible to more people with varying levels of compatibility?

I think we can answer these questions. I know we can. In fact, let’s challenge ourselves as a national community. Let’s find the underlying principle which pushes us all into civic engagement and break apart barriers of profession, age, opinion, and region.

You can find the trailer to Blueberry Soup here: http://vimeo.com/ondemand/blueberrysoup.