Trump’s rhetorical style and deliberation

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Peter

Donald Trump’s speaking style is extraordinarily paratactic. That is, he utters declarative sentences without any of the explicit transitional words that can explain why sentences fit together. No “therefore’s,” “on the other hand’s,” or even “well, I think’s.” He just plunges in. Many listeners perceive the content of his various sentences to be logically unrelated. However, he is remarkably repetitive when he speaks at any length, so the unity of his speech derives from his returning to the same phrases. Finally, he uses “I” sentences overwhelmingly, plus “you” when he’s talking to someone in particular. He makes relatively rare use of the third person. We could name his style “paratactic/egocentric.”

I’ve been arguing that the way we organize our thoughts affects our ability to deliberate with others (to listen responsively to what they say). As I note in this video, some people hold such scattered thoughts that you can’t grab onto their argument in order to understand and engage it. Others have such centralized networks of ideas that all you can do is assess their one core principle (which might be individual freedom, equity, or God). If you happen to disagree with it, there’s no way to route around it. A better structure is connected, complex, and not overly centralized.

By this standard, Trump’s rhetoric is disastrous for deliberation. The network formed by his sentences manages to be disconnected except insofar as he repeats a few nodes and connects all his ideas to Donald Trump (which one cannot take as one’s own idea without becoming personally subservient to him).

My notion of what counts as good talk could be biased by class. After all, one of the things you learn as you accumulate years of education and pile on degrees is parataxis: connecting ideas by using explicit transitional words. That is either a sign of superior reasoning or a way for a white-collar elite to identify its own superiority. (Paging doctors Habermas and Bourdieu for a consult on that question.) Likewise, talking in the third person about ideas and institutions is either essential to deliberation or an evasion of personal authenticity. Some read Trump as honest and view more objective speakers as evasive.

I’ve been developing this view of deliberative rhetoric since long before I cared about Donald Trump. It’s in We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, pp. 50-2. I oppose and reject Trump for many reasons other than his rhetorical style. Therefore, I don’t think I’m just criticizing his style to score political points against him. But it’s worth thinking about whether the rhetorical standards suggested by my theory are class-biased.

Naming and Framing Difficult Issues to Make Sound Decisions

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 28-page report, Naming and Framing Difficult Issues to Make Sound Decisions (2016), was written by David Mathews and supported by the Cousins Research Group of the Kettering Foundation.

In the report, Mathews shares some core realizations Kettering has come to learn over the last 30 years of research about how people make decisions and take action. Kettering has found that there are two moments in the decision-making process that are especially important: naming and framing. The way a problem is defined and the how the different options are framed; significantly impacts how effective the process and response will be.

Below is an excerpt of the report and it can be found in full at the bottom of this page or on Kettering Foundation’s site here.

From the guide…

People are much more likely to work together if they have participated in the decision making about what to do. And in making the decision, they may come to a more complete understanding of the nature of the problem they are facing, which could open their eyes to untapped resources that they can bring to bear.

The obvious question is, what would motivate citizens to invest their limited time and other resources in grappling with problems brimming with emotionally charged disagreements? Generally speaking, people avoid conflict, and they don’t usually invest their energy unless they see that something deeply important to them, their families, and their neighbors is at stake. And they won’t get involved unless they believe there is something they, themselves, must do.

Therefore, in order for citizens to make sound decisions and take effective collective action, they have to:
• Connect with the things that are deeply important to them,
• Deal with normative disagreements that can lead to immobilizing polarization, and
• Identify those things that they can do through their collective efforts to help solve problems.

The Potential in Naming and Framing
There are opportunities to master these challenges at two critical moments in dealing with problems. One occurs when a problem is being named, that is, when someone defines the problem. This is usually done by a news organization, a professional group, or a political leader. While seemingly insignificant, Kettering Foundation research has found that who gets to name a problem— and how they name it—are critical factors that go a long way in determining how effective the response will be.

Another critical moment occurs when different options for dealing with a problem are put into a framework for decision making. There may just be one option on the table, a solution favored by a school board or championed by an interest group. Or there may be the predictable two options in a political debate, one being the polar opposite of the other. Our research suggests that deliberation is more likely to occur if the full range of options is available for consideration.

As every trial attorney knows, whoever controls the way an issue is framed in a court case has the upper hand. So how a framework for decision making is created— how the case is presented, as it were—plays a critical role in problem solving. This report describes ways of naming problems and framing issues that give citizens a greater ability to chart their future and solve problems. The results of this naming and framing might be a guide to use in forums or town meetings, or it might be a strategy used to break out of solution wars and give the public a stronger voice in decision making. Naming and framing can also be done in classrooms to introduce students to roles that citizens can play in politics other than campaigning and voting.

One clarification: while naming and framing are critical, they aren’t ends in themselves. They are just two elements in the larger politics of public decision making and acting. To reach a decision, people have to weigh various options for acting on a problem against all of the things they feel are at stake. Unless that happens, unless people face up to the consequences and sacrifices that are inescapable in every option, including the option they favor, there is no way to know how they will react when push comes to shove—as always happens on difficult issues. When people wrestle with the trade-offs they may need to make, they will often revise the name they have been using, or they may put more or new options on the table to consider.

In making decisions together, people also have to be mindful of the resources they will need, how they will commit those resources, and how they will organize the actions that need to be taken. These are other critical moments. When resources are being identified, they may or may not include resources that citizens have, such as the social relationships they can draw on. When resources are committed, the commitments may be limited to legally binding contracts and not include the promises people make to one another, covenants that also enforce obligations. When actions are organized, they may be bureaucratically directed and not make use of the self-directing capacities of citizens, such as networking. All of these are junctures when people are either drawn into or shut out of what should be the public’s business. And the way problems are named and issues are framed paves the way for all that follows.

This is an excerpt of the report, download the full guide at the bottom of this page to learn more.

About Kettering Foundation
The Kettering Foundation is a nonprofit operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Kettering’s primary research question is, what does it take to make democracy work as it should? Kettering’s research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people can do collectively to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn

Resource Link: www.kettering.org/catalog/product/naming-and-framing-2016

A New Model for Citizen Engagement

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Peter

Myung J. Lee, the executive director of Cities of Service, and I have an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review that is free to read or download until November 17.

We define citizen engagement as a combination of deliberation (communicating and learning about issues), collaborative action, and the working relationships that form during such interactions. We summarize a growing body of literature that finds that citizen engagement–so defined–is crucial to addressing the most stubborn social problems.

But the harder question is always: How can America get more civic engagement? Who would be motivated to expand the number and breadth of active citizens or to make their work more consequential?

In the SSIR piece, we propose one answer. Municipal governments have much to gain by enlisting more citizens in more consequential civic work. This serves their self-interest. Furthermore, many cities already have thousands of citizens involved in organized volunteering efforts. Volunteering, by itself, does not have the positive effects that we find from citizen engagement understood more broadly. But all those volunteers are expressing a willingness to take action. Municipal governments are capable of turning ordinary volunteering into opportunities for deliberation about issues, collective action, and sustained relationships (including relationships among government officials and other citizens in their communities).

One of several ways that governments can achieve this shift is by helping citizens to set measurable targets for change at the community level and providing them with the data they need to assess progress. Unpaid citizens are not responsible for achieving these outcomes on their own; they collaborate with city employees and people from other sectors and hold each other accountable.

In the article, we offer several promising examples of what we call “impact volunteering” in US cities. We highlight cases from the Cities of Service network–which I strongly endorse–but our argument is meant to apply more broadly as well.

Citation: Myung J. Lee and Peter Levine, “A New Model for Citizen Engagement,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, fall 2016, pp. 40-45.

Ships Passing in the Night

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 20-page report, Ships Passing in the Night (2014), was written by David Mathews and supported by the Cousins Research Group of the Kettering Foundation. In the article, Mathews talks about the two major movements in civic engagement; one in higher education and the other found growing among communities able to work together. He uses the analogy of the wetlands, like how life thrives in the wetlands, it is in communities that can come together, where democracy thrives. Because it is these opportunities for people to discuss details and issues of their lives, that people will become more engaged in the issues that matter to them.

Mathews explores the question, “Why, though, are these two civic movements in danger of passing like the proverbial ships in the night? More important, how might these efforts become mutually supportive?”

Below is an excerpt of the report and it can be found in full at the bottom of this page or on Kettering Foundation’s site here.

From the guide…

The Shaffers of academe are one of the forces driving a civic engagement movement on campuses across the country. Not so long ago, the civic education of college students was of little concern. Now, thanks to educators like Shaffer, that indifference is giving way. Leadership programs are common, and students are taught civic skills, including civil dialogue. There are also more opportunities to be of service these days, which is socially beneficial as well as personally rewarding. These opportunities are enriched by students’ exposure to the political problems behind the needs that volunteers try to meet. University partnerships with nearby communities offer technical assistance, professional advice, and access to institutional resources. Faculty, who were once “sages on the stage,” have learned to be more effective in communities by being “guides on the side.” All in all, there is much to admire in the civic engagement movement on campuses.

Another civic engagement movement is occurring off campus. At Kettering, we have seen it clearly in communities on the Gulf Coast that are recovering from Hurricane Katrina…

People wanted to restore their community—both its buildings and way of life—and felt that they had to come together as a community to do that. The community was both their objective and the means of reaching that objective. This has been the goal for many of the other civic engagement movements in communities that are trying to cope with natural disasters, economic change, and other problems that threaten everyone’s well-being.

Interestingly, a year or so after Katrina, a group of scholars studying communities that survived disasters validated the instincts of Don, Mary, and their neighbors. These communities were resilient because they had developed the capacity to come together. And the resilience proved more important than individual protective measures like well-stocked pantries.

People with a democratic bent like Don, Mary, and their neighbors don’t want to be informed, organized, or assisted as much as they want to be in charge of their lives. And they sense that this means they need a greater capacity to act together despite their differences. That is why they say they want to come together as communities to maintain their communities. Unfortunately, they often have difficulty finding institutions that understand their agenda.

Nongovernmental organizations, according to a recent Kettering and Harwood study, are often more interested in demonstrating the impact of their programs than in facilitating self-determination and self-rule. Even citizens may be uncertain of what they can do by themselves and want to put the responsibility on schools, police departments, or other government agencies…

The Wetlands of Democracy
We don’t have a name for what we are seeing, but the more we see, the more we have come to believe that we are looking at something more than civil society at work, more than revitalized public life, and more than grassroots initiatives. We don’t think we are seeing an alternative political system like direct democracy; rather, we are looking at the roots of self-rule. Democratic politics seems to operate at two levels. The most obvious is the institutional level, which includes elections, lawmaking, and the delivery of services. The other level is underneath these superstructures, and what happens there is much like what happens in the wetlands of a natural ecosystem.

We have been experimenting with a wetlands analogy to describe what supports and sustains institutional politics. Wetlands were once overlooked and unappreciated but were later recognized as the nurseries for marine life. For example, the swamps along the Gulf Coast were filled in by developers, and the barrier islands were destroyed when boat channels were dug through them. The consequences were disastrous. Sea life that bred in the swamps died off, and coastal cities were exposed to the full fury of hurricanes when the barrier islands eroded. The wetlands of politics play roles similar to swamps and barrier islands. They include informal gatherings, ad hoc associations, and the seemingly innocuous banter that goes on when people mull over the meaning of their everyday experiences. These appear inconsequential when compared with what happens in elections, legislative bodies, and courts. Yet mulling over the meaning of everyday experiences in grocery stores and coffee shops can be the wellspring of public decision making. Connections made in these informal gatherings become the basis for political networks, and ad hoc associations evolve into civic organizations.

In the political wetlands, as in institutional politics, problems are given names, issues are framed for discussion, decisions are made, resources are identified and utilized, actions are organized, and results are evaluated. In politics at both levels, action is taken or not; power is generated or lost; change occurs or is blocked. We aren’t watching perfect democracy in the political wetlands because there isn’t such a thing. But we are seeing ways of acting, of generating power, and of creating change that are unlike what occurs in institutional politics.

Why the Disconnect?
It would seem that two civic engagement movements, occurring at the same time and often in the same locations, would be closely allied—perhaps mutually reinforcing. That doesn’t seem to be happening very often. Research reported by Sean Creighton in the 2008 issue of the Higher Education Exchange suggests the connection is quite limited. Even though academic institutions have considerable expertise and a genuine interest in being helpful, they don’t necessarily know how to relate to the self-organizing impulses of Don, Mary, and their neighbors…

This is an excerpt of the report, download the full guide at the bottom of this page to learn more.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn

Resource Link: ships_passing_in_the_night

The Next Generation of Our Work

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 6-page article, The Next Generation of Our Work (2014), by NCDD’s own Co-Founder, Sandy Heierbacher, was published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 10: Iss. 1. In the article, Heierbacher shares her unique view of the rapidly growing dialogue and deliberation field and lifts up the shifts in the field that shape the next generation of D&D work. Changes are happening in regard to:

– collaboration with government
– openness to online tools for engagement
– consistently rapid growth
– increased energy devoted to collaborative efforts
– re-focus on the power of local
– funders are coming around
– attention to infrastructure

Read the article in full below ind the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the article…

How does one comment on the state of a field that seems to be ever growing yet constantly in flux? As the director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), I have a bird’s eye view of this burgeoning, vibrant field. Yet I realize I see only a fraction of the great work that is being done to engage people in the decisions and issues that effect their lives.

Here are a few of the trends I have been noticing from my vantage point.

Collaboration with government. Many engagement practitioners are accustomed to working outside of government out of necessity, pushing on the edges of power but rarely getting through. This has been gradually changing with innovations like the Citizens Initiative Review and Participatory Budgeting being embraced by local and state governments. Additionally, government networks like the National Council on State Legislators and the International City/County Management Association are beginning to recognize deliberative public engagement as vital to effective governance.

Openness to online tools for engagement. Many group process experts are still skeptical that quality dialogue and deliberation can happen online. Yet there has been a growing interest among NCDD members to understand how they might utilize technology to engage new audiences and to support their face-to-face efforts. The popularity of our Tech Tuesday events and the quick acclimation our members have shown to our own online programs using tools like Codigital, Maestroconference and Hackpad are a testament to this shift.

Although skepticism is still par for the course among dialogue and deliberation practitioners who understand the power of in-person engagement, we are learning how to selectively invest our time and energy in online technology so we are not left in the dust as the world rapidly becomes more connected and digitized. Some examples of successful online engagement include recent experiments like Creating Community Solutions’ Text-Talk-Act project (www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/texttalkact), which utilized text messaging technology to guide groups of young people through in-person dialogues, and our successful use of Codigital to get the NCDD community to crowdsource, hone and prioritize ideas for our upcoming conference. These experiences show how the deliberative democracy field is learning to appreciate the continuum Ethan Zuckerman of MIT Media Lab refers to as “thin engagement” (for texting, voting, clicking, sharing) and “thick engagement” (for the work our field is all about).

Consistently rapid growth. If NCDD’s membership is any indication, the deliberative democracy field is growing rapidly. After launching in 2002 with 50 organizational members, we now have more than 2,050 members and 33,500 subscribers. Lately, it seems like someone new finds and joins NCDD every single day, and we constantly learn of new organizations, networks and innovators we would love to bring into the network.

Increased energy devoted to collaborative efforts. Many in the dialogue and deliberation community recognize that their hopes for this work cannot be realized unless we combine efforts. An important recent example of cross-organization collaboration in the deliberative democracy field is Creating Community Solutions, an alliance of six organizations—AmericaSpeaks, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, Everyday Democracy, the National Issues Forums Institute, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, and the University of Arizona’s National Institute for Civil Discourse— which organized hundreds of dialogues across the country as part of Obama’s National Dialogue on Mental Health.

Also, two notable collaborative events are being planned to coincide with the National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation in October. First, the Mediators Foundation will lead a meeting-of-the-minds of top leaders and influencers in transpartisan dialogue work. Second, the CommunityMatters Partnership will convene a summit on civic infrastructure bringing together leaders in various sectors of public work. Both events will encourage collaboration and relationship building among people doing parallel, but often disconnected, work.

Other examples of successful collaboration include last year’s effort by a group of NCDD members to organize a public-at-all-levels infrastructure for national dialogue on a shoestring budget. Additionally, the Kettering Foundation has increased its attention to the opportunities for deliberative democracy organizations to collaborate, and as a field we are recognizing and dealing with the various barriers and snags we face while attempting to work together. These efforts are just a taste of the collaboration that is happening across this field.

A re-focus on the power of local. Though President Obama’s attention to open government caused a temporary spike in our field’s hopefulness that public engagement would be supported from the national stage, I’ve seen a strong swing back to a focus on the local level. Many new ultra-local efforts have formed and thrived in the past few years. These efforts tend to be self-supported, innovative, timely, and practical. One of my favorite examples comes from an NCDD member in Denver, local playwright and actor Evan Weissman, who founded an effort called “Warm Cookies of the Revolution.” Warm Cookies has created a “Civic Health Club” in Denver that runs creative civic events on everything from water treatment to pro sports—and serves milk and cookies at every event for the hungry activists and curious citizens who attend.

Even national efforts like Transition Towns and Resilience Circles, which help prepare people for environmental and economic fall-out, prioritize the establishment of local level groups. And we were reminded of the power of local relationships while running Creating Community Solutions for Obama’s national dialogue on mental health, when support, publicity and creativity came through in abundance at the local level while we struggled for attention and funds at the national level.

Funders are coming around. Though the lack of funding is a much discussed challenge facing practitioners of work focused on “process,” more and more funders seem to be focusing on convening, facilitation, and stakeholder collaboration. The Kellogg Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation both produced gorgeous guidebooks on convening last year. Community foundations across the U.S. and foundations that work intensively in select communities, like the Orton Family Foundation, are embracing their role as catalysts for community-wide dialogue and collaboration. And many foundations are devoting significant resources to “Collective Impact” efforts, which bring together issue-focused groups that typically compete with each other for funding and public attention, and facilitate and support them in setting, measuring and achieving joint goals.

Attention to infrastructure. Leaders in the deliberative democracy field are increasingly focused on infrastructure. NCDD dedicated its last national conference to examining the concept of “civic infrastructure” – the underlying structure and supports people need so they can come together to address their challenges effectively. There are also many other examples of dialogue and deliberation organizations raising questions about infrastructure. For example, the Community Matters Partnership (www.communitymatters.org/who-we-are), an alliance of seven national organizations involved in community building, place making and grant making, have turned their attention to understanding and proliferating the concept. New Hampshire Listens is working to build a statewide infrastructure to support public deliberation on complex issues affecting New Hampshire residents, and UIC’s Institute for Policy & Civic Engagement studied Chicago’s participation and activist infrastructure in order to build a robust dialogue and deliberation network in the city.

The Creating Community Solutions’ partnership has been looking at what kind of infrastructure is needed to support future multi-method nationwide deliberation efforts. Finally, NCDD is working with the Kettering Foundation to gain a better understanding of the capacity and infrastructure that already exists throughout our field, in order to uncover how this capacity can best be utilized.

What’s next for the field? Much of NCDD’s time is devoted to keeping our network strong and active, and providing valuable content and programming for our members. This is a time of extraordinary momentum and productivity in our field, and we could easily fill our staff time simply by highlighting our members’ programs on our blog and social media, sharing their resources in our online resource center, and providing them with more and more ways to connect with each other about their successes and challenges.

Yet the trends I outlined above point to a strong yearning in our field to break out of our current constraints, to find ways to collaborate more effectively with each other, to combine forces with those outside our field, and to scale up our efforts. At the 2014 NCDD conference, we will be exploring all these trends as we rally around the theme “Democracy for the Next Generation.” What do we want the next generation of our work to look like, and how can we work together to get there? Now more than ever, we have both the opportunity and, increasingly, the imperative to bring this work to a much larger stage in order to build a stronger democracy that is able to address society’s most pressing challenges.

Download the article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol10/iss1/art23

Developing Materials for Deliberative Forums

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 36-page guide, Developing Materials for Deliberative Forums, was written by Brad Rourke and published 2014 on the Kettering Foundation site. In the guide, Rourke shares all the elements needed to design an issue guide to better inform participants during deliberation. An issue guide lays out multiple sides of a subject/issue to give participants tools to engage in more informed deliberation, the guide then offers examples of the options, as well as, drawbacks to each one. There is no one perfect way to develop an issue guide; so Rourke provides details on ways to design a guide that is effective at giving participants the information they need to deliberate on the issues at-hand.

Below is an excerpt of the article; it can be downloaded in full at the link on the bottom of this page or find it on Kettering Foundation’s site here.

From the guide…

Deliberation does not require a certain kind of guide, or framework, or language, or facilitator. But, because it can be difficult to face such choices, supporting materials can make it easier. Many community groups, national organizations, and others, including the National Issues Forums (NIF), develop materials meant to help groups deliberate together over difficult public issues. Through its research, the Kettering Foundation has learned about the kinds of materials that can spark this public work. This document explores the important elements involved in going from an initial topic to having a complete issue guide suitable to use in the kinds of deliberative forums that are the hallmark of the NIF.

Deliberative forums are used in different ways, depending on the community and who is involved. Some communities use them to set direction on important local issues. People in other communities may hold forums in order to give citizens the opportunity to think through an important national issue and what they and others might do about it. The results of deliberating together in these ways are sometimes passed on to public officials. Other times public officials personally take part in deliberating with other citizens.

There are many ways to create materials that will support such public deliberation. As long as they are accessible to all kinds of people, allow them to carefully consider options and weigh drawbacks, no one way is necessarily better than another.

Naming and Framing Issues in Public Terms
When issues are named and framed in public terms, we can identify the problem that we need to talk about (naming) and the critical options and drawbacks for deciding what to do about that problem (framing).

When citizens see their concerns reflected in the naming and framing of an issue, they are more likely to participate in making decisions and to see that they themselves have power to affect their future.This goes beyond simply using clear language (this is part of it, but not the only aspect). It means that the problem must be stated in terms that take into account the things that people hold deeply valuable. This is the essence of naming problems in public terms.

A framework that will prompt public deliberation should make clear the options that are available for addressing the problem and the tensions at stake in facing it. It should lay bare what is at issue in readily understandable terms.

Three key questions drive the development of a framework for public deliberation:

– What concerns you about this issue?
– Given those concerns, what would you do about it?
– If that worked to ease your concern, what are the downsides or trade-offs you might then have to accept?

Responses to these questions, together, can generate a framework that makes clear the drawbacks of different people’s favored options. Facing these drawbacks and coming to a sound decision about what to do is the ultimate concern of deliberation.

Issue framing is a practice, not a process or specific technique—akin to playing a musical instrument, knitting, martial arts, or exercising. The best way to learn about these things is by doing them. The more people work at the practice of issue framing, the better they get at identifying core concerns and articulating trade-offs. Like any practice, this develops over time.

In deliberating together, people wrestle with options, face trade-offs, and make decisions about how to act. Sometimes people and organizations in communities convene deliberative forums where people come together to do this work-NIF groups have been doing this for 30 years. An issue framework, or issue guide, is intended to support this. There is no perfect issue framework. Any framework that includes the public’s main concerns fairly represented and that includes the important drawbacks of each option can provide the structure for a group of people to deliberate together about how they will address a shared problem.

A Way to Do It
In developing materials to support public deliberation, writing an issue guide is just the tip of the iceberg. The earlier work that goes into naming and framing the issue—work that requires time and people—is most important. The sections that follow describe one way of naming and framing issues for public deliberation. The aim is to create an issue guide that will be used by many kinds of people in deliberative public forums. It is not the only way to achieve that goal, but it is one that has worked well over time.

Essential Elements
An issue guide should introduce and support deliberation, collectively, among a group whose individual experiences and inclinations may differ.

A well-framed issue guide contains enough factual material and data so that citizens from different circumstances who deliberate together have the knowledge they need to engage productively. However, it doesn’t need to serve as a primer or study guide. Its purpose is not to create experts but rather to illuminate what is at issue—the important conflicts or dilemmas that the issue raises—and allow people to make decisions about how to act together

Regardless of length, issue guides usually contain five elements:

– A title that reflects the major tension inherent in the issue. The title must convey that there is a difficult question or problem that must be faced and can’t be ducked. An excellent title that starkly conveys one problem at the core of the health-care issue might be: “The High Cost of Good Health Care.
– An introduction that explains what the issue is and why something must be done about it. The introduction should make the case that this is an important issue to talk about and should refrain from “arguing” for any of the options.
– Descriptions of each option for dealing with the issue. Each option is an overall strategy that is driven by a unique concern when it comes to the problem. These sections are at their best when they adopt a tone that argues for each specific option—that is, each one should be persuasive and an argument against the others. It should make its own strongest case. These options each have subsections.
– The first subsection includes examples of actions that would correspond to each option, along with who would do them. The actors should be real—and varied—such as government, police, schools, or neighbors. We have found that identifying four or five actions per option helps give people a clear sense of what the option is about and what people can do to work on solutions.
– The second subsection includes examples of the drawbacks or trade-offs inherent in each action. Every action that is presented should have an inherent drawback. Some may find a drawback tolerable, and others may not; however, talking through the consequences of a particular action against what you hold valuable is the crux of deliberation. The key is to make these choices clear.

Many participants will read the guide for the first time during the forum, so presenting data and facts as charts or other easily grasped formats makes it easier to use. In many issue guides, the options are summarized in the form of a grid, which provides the basic framework at a glance.

For more information, download the full guide at the bottom of this page.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn

Resource Link: Developing_Materials_for_Deliberative_Forums

a reason for hope: the Citizens Initiative Review

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Peter

(Posted from DC) The Massachusetts 2016 Citizens Initiative Review just concluded. Twenty randomly selected citizens spent four full days hearing testimony and intensively deliberating to write a statement meant to inform Massachusetts voters about the pending marijuana legalization referendum. Tufts’ Tisch College is a sponsor of this process, and I made a few visits during the days of deliberation, which are open to the public. I can report that my fellow citizens were deeply responsible, thoughtful, serious, and civil. At the end, I understand they found themselves moved by what they had accomplished.

Their task was to write a statement to guide voters. Their short document had to include the strongest reasons to vote for and against the initiative. Their fine product is here.

In contrast to politics as usual, the CIR isn’t polarized, and it’s not about winning and losing. In a good sense, it’s personal: participants get to know each other and try to make something valuable together. It is demographically reflective of the whole state. Money can’t get you into the room or buy your ideas a better hearing. It’s open-ended: no one can predict or determine what the deliberators will write, and each voter who reads their statement will make up her own mind about the referendum.

To observe 20 of your fellow citizens–of all ages, races, and walks of life–playing a role in making policy is a beautiful thing and an antidote to despair.

Where Have All the Voters Gone?

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 6-page discussion guide, Where Have All the Voters Gone?, was created by the Maricopa Community Colleges Center for Civic Participation and Arizona State University Pastor Center for Politics & Public Service. It was updated in July 2016 and was adapted from National Issues Forums Institute. This discussion guide provides four approaches to use in deliberation on why voter turnout is currently low and has dramatically gone down since the 1960s, especially among communities of color. With each approach, the guide offers examples and suggestions; and concerns, trade-offs, and consequences. The end of the guide offers closing reflections on how participants’ thinking changed during the discussion and what can be done to remedy the low voter turn out in current US politics.

Below is an abbreviated version of the guide, which can be downloaded in full at the bottom of this page or found on NIFI’s site here.

From the guide…

Many Americans express frustration and concern about poor and decreasing voter turnout rates in local and national elections. Discussion about why citizens aren’t voting tends to focus on voter attitudes toward politicians and politics, and on the implications of a disengaged voting populace for the future of our democracy.

Given these concerns:
What, if anything, should be done to increase voter participation?
What are the key elements of a “healthy democracy”?

The discussion guide gives four options for deliberation:

Approach One: Eliminate the barriers
Proponents of this approach say that the act of voting has become too complicated and poses obstacles and barriers that can prove challenging for some voters to overcome. They suggest changes to the voting and elections system to make it easier and more convenient for voters to participate in elections.

Approach Two: Increase election issue awareness
Some research suggests that a major factor contributing to low voter turnout is a lack of awareness or familiarity with the candidates, positions, or ballot measures that will be voted on in a given election. Critics point out a declining emphasis on civics education in public schools as a cause for this trend. Others point to a vicious cycle for voters in communities that vote in low numbers: Candidates and campaigns focus efforts on communities that vote in high numbers. So minorities and poor voters, for example, get less information about elections, which leads to low turnout.

Approach Three: Reform the election process
Many voters and non-voters alike express concern and frustration about problems with the election and voting process. Some are concerned about security and accuracy issues relating to voter fraud and vote tabulation (“Will my vote even be counted?”), while others worry about the role and influence that the political party system, lobbyists and political campaigns have, and about the fairness and transparency of the election process.

Approach Four: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Some policy leaders argue that it is not necessary or even ideal for all citizens to participate in every election. They say that voters will participate in elections that have particular interest for them, and will perhaps endure the consequences for not voting, and that that is the nature of democracy.

To explore the full discussion guide with examples, suggestions, concerns, trade-offs, and consequences; click the link below.

About Maricopa Community Colleges Center for Civic Participation
The Maricopa Community Colleges’ Center for Civic Participation (CCP) seeks to enrich public life and public discourse on our Maricopa Community College campuses and in our communities. The Center also serves to promote effective practices that support Maricopa’s mission relating to community education and civic responsibility.

About Arizona State University Pastor Center for Politics & Public Service
Located in the ASU College of Public Service and Community Solutions, the Center serves as a dynamic, student-centric hub of activity that promotes, publicizes, and encourages political engagement and public service among ASU students and the broader community. It embodies ASU’s commitment to being an active agent of change, addressing society’s problems.

About NIFI Issue Guides
NIFI’s Issue Guides introduce participants to several choices or approaches to consider. Rather than conforming to any single public proposal, each choice reflects widely held concerns and principles. Panels of experts review manuscripts to make sure the choices are presented accurately and fairly. By intention, Issue Guides do not identify individuals or organizations with partisan labels, such as Democratic, Republican, conservative, or liberal. The goal is to present ideas in a fresh way that encourages readers to judge them on their merit.

Follow on Twitter: @NIForums

Resource Link: Where_Have_All_the_Voters_Gone

A Public Voice That’s Missing [Kettering 2016]

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 16-page report, A Public Voice That’s Missing, by David Mathews was published July 2016 and found on the Kettering Foundation’s site. This report grew from a speech David Mathews gave at the National Conference for Dialogue and Deliberation in 2014. This report discusses the need for more of a public voice presence in civic engagement from both “sides”; from the government or organization to more authentically engage the community and the citizenry to be more active in engage those who make decisions.

A feeling of hope for an increasing public voice is instilled throughout this report because of the rise of organizations dedicated towards working to engage the community via dialogue and deliberation. The public has deeply held values about the shape of their lives and this report proposes that the lack of interest from the public may be more a lack of connections being made by government or organizations from these values to decisions/policy. It is important to lift up these connections and also, working through the conflicts which may arise because of conflicting values. No matter the place, “it is important to know what people feel is valuable, what options they want to consider, what role they think citizens should play, what tensions have to be worked through, whether judgment is being exercised, and if people are ready to move forward in a direction they can ‘live with’.”

Below is an excerpt from the report and you can read the original on KF’s site here.

From the report…

Introduction
It is no secret that the American people have been unhappy with our political system for some time, and they doubt that the system can reform itself. The public’s loss of confidence in government as well as other major institutions is well documented and widely reported. Worse still, the distrust is mutual. Under these conditions, polarization flourishes. All of this is occurring despite numerous efforts by institutions to engage the public and demonstrate accountability. Many officials aren’t persuaded that what citizens have to say is useful. As one officeholder described the problem: he hears both everything and nothing from the public.

In Washington, as well as in our statehouses, policymaking is usually dominated by three voices. Obviously, one is the voice of elected officials. Another is the voice of special interests, whose number has grown enormously in a relatively short time, as have the issues they represent. The third voice, also quite powerful, comes from professionals who staff our bureaucracies. They speak in an expert voice. There is value in all of these, yet there is little of what I think of as a public voice being heard.

…

However, the issues where a public voice is needed most are those that have no well-defined solutions and no demonstrably right answers that can be measured objectively. We have to depend on our best collective judgment. At the end of the day, we, the people, have to decide.

Making a public voice more audible in our capitols won’t cure all our political ills. However, if the political system doesn’t seem likely to reform itself, people reason that they have nowhere else to turn but to themselves as a public. While a public voice may not be totally sufficient, it is certainly necessary.

The question is whether those in the best position to help this voice emerge realize the opportunity they have and what it will take to seize it. They are the only ones who can answer this question. I fervently hope they will.

Download the interim report for free here.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn

Resource Link: KF_PublicVoice_2016

Why and When Should We Use Public Deliberation?

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The five-page article, Why and When Should We Use Public Deliberation?, written by Stephanie Solomon and Julia Abelson, was published 2012 in the Hastings Center Report. In the article, Solomon and Abelson discuss the role of public deliberation in public policy decision-making. Public deliberation is an alternative process to determine public policy and can be a more effective method of creating policy than other familiar methods; depending on the circumstances of the issues, the level of engagement desired, and the needs of the community. Public deliberation can be an effective tool when working with conflicting values; for topics that require not just expert opinions but require the experiential knowledge and back ground that the community can provide; and when there is low trust among the people for public policy process. To explore this, the authors propose the question: why and when should we use public deliberation?

Below is an excerpt from the article and it can be read in full in the resource link at the bottom of this page.

From the article…

Introduction
Public deliberation is an approach policy-makers can use to tackle public policy problems that require the consideration of both values and evidence. However, there is much uncertainty about why and when to choose it rather than more familiar approaches, such as public opinion polls or expert panels. With guidance on the why and when of public deliberation, policy-makers can use it appropriately to inform public policy.

To answer the “why” question, we emphasize the importance of matching the method to purpose. Public deliberation is not right for all policy issues. Polls, surveys, and focus groups are appropriate when the aim is to access the “top of mind” or “general attitudes” of the public, and when the issue is one that people think about or have experience with in their everyday lives. In addition, there are purely technical or scientific matters for which experts alone should be consulted, such as determining which flu viruses should be used to make next year’s vaccine.

But for an increasing number of public policy problems, neither of these approaches is adequate. For these issues, public deliberation can contribute to more legitimate policy decisions than other approaches; it can yield recommendations that are more feasible, better framed, more accountable, more inclusive, more just, and more balanced. Public deliberation may also have intrinsic value, increasing public-spiritedness, buy-in, and trust in governing institutions and their decisions, which are also central goals for policy-makers.

The “when” question has two parts: When is a policy question most suited for public deliberation, and when in the policy-making process should the public deliberate? Both questions are important.

…

When in the Policy Process?
Many argue that public deliberation is most likely to have a direct impact on policy decisions when it is undertaken in close proximity to the decision being made. At that point, because policy-makers know which options are available, participants are only given choices that are legitimately on the table. Thus, those who argue that public deliberation should only be undertaken when it can have a concrete impact on policy are committed to public deliberation taking place only downstream.

However, some argue that deliberation held just prior to a policy decision has already been framed by dominant groups, which limits the opportunity for the public to entertain and provide truly alternative views and options. In other words, the practical policy choices provided to deliberators downstream may not accurately reflect the spectrum of the public’s views on the issues. While participants may not have a direct voice in the final decision if engaged upstream, they may feel their participation is more significant because it shaped the policy questions themselves. Critics of upstream deliberation worry that participants will expect that their voices will be heeded, and when they do not see any direct results of their time and energy, they will be less likely to engage in the future.

Our view is that both upstream and downstream public deliberation is crucial, but that their effectiveness depends on the clarity with which expectations are established from the start. If people are engaged only downstream, they can never challenge the fundamental questions and options of policy decisions; they can only choose among preestablished options. If people are only engaged upstream, they have the chance to express their views, but they are less likely to directly influence real policy choices. Groups considering public deliberation should weigh these trade-offs. If possible, both upstream and downstream engagement should be utilized. If not, the implications of either choice should be made clear to participants.

Those who want to make the best public policy recommendations and decisions are faced with a multitude of approaches, from public polls, expert panels, surveys, and, increasingly, public deliberation. The choice of when to use which strategy should reflect the types of policy issues at hand, the state of the public’s trust at the time, and the timing and pace of the policy-making process associated with the given issues.

Resource Link: Why_and_When_Should_We_Use_Public Deliberation

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Category Archives: deliberation

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The Next Generation of Our Work

Developing Materials for Deliberative Forums

a reason for hope: the Citizens Initiative Review

Where Have All the Voters Gone?

A Public Voice That’s Missing [Kettering 2016]

Why and When Should We Use Public Deliberation?