Practicing Civic Courage in Our Time

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The article, Practicing Civic Courage in Our Time, was written Martha McCoy and published February 2017 on Everyday Democracy’s site. In the article, McCoy shares different ways in which to have more civic courage by reaching in, reaching out, and creating spaces for democratic participation. You can find the full article below, as well as, on directly from Everyday Democracy’s site here.

From Everyday Democracy…

The day after the election, we shared a piece by our board member Peter Levine, in which he called for civic courage. As division, uncertainty, and anxiety continue to grow, I find myself coming back to this important idea. When messages of fear become louder and more frequent, what does civic courage look like? How can we practice it?

At difficult times throughout our history, many people have exercised civic courage. What kind of courage do we need to practice today? What will it take to advance a democracy that values the voice and participation of people of all racial and ethnic groups, economic means, creeds, ages, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, and walks of life?

Since Everyday Democracy is a national civic organization that focuses on providing ways to lift every voice, we have opportunities to work with and learn from civic practitioners and visionary leaders across the country. Here are a few lessons about civic courage we have drawn from their experiences:

Reach in: The work of strengthening democracy is ultimately collective, but it is also an “inside job.” Those whose words and actions touch us most deeply draw on their inner strength – often rooted in their faith in God and grounded in deeply held beliefs, such as a strong sense of compassion and justice. Many leaders we work with spend time apart – in quiet retreats, with others of their faith tradition, in nature, in poetry, in meditation – so that they can enter more fully into the work of strengthening voice, participation, and justice. They show us that when we take the time to listen to and nurture our own longings for wholeness and connection, we are better able to find the courage to operate from our best selves and to persist through great challenges.

Reach out: It requires courage to connect with and seek to understand others, especially those who have experiences and beliefs different from our own. As our politics become more prone to personal attack, overgeneralization, and stereotyping (“all conservatives believe this, all progressives believe that”), it is becoming even more difficult to open our hearts and minds. But it is possible. In our work, we have heard thousands of people tell their own stories, speak from their own values and experiences, listen deeply to others’ stories and concerns, and find human and civic connection.

The willingness to speak honestly and listen to others creates the empathy that is essential to democracy. Empathy helps us put ourselves in another’s shoes, understand the meaning of justice, and form relationships across difference. It enables us to be hard on ideas but not on people. It helps us make conflict productive. It prevents the “us vs. them” that is at the root of violence. It provides the foundation for working together, even when some disagreement (inevitably) remains. It makes it possible to stand for our convictions, even while we make room for others to stand for theirs.

Stand up: It takes courage to use our voices to stand against anti-democratic behaviors and practices and to stand for more democratic ways of governing ourselves. Speaking out against racism is one of the most powerful examples of “standing up.”

People are learning that racism goes well beyond bigotry. Racism is a web of attitudes, practices, and policies that treats people of color as inferior and creates unfair disadvantages. It has been a primary impediment to democratic practice since our very founding. And it has laid the foundation for other forms of disadvantage and inequity – such as those based on income level, education, gender, age, religion, ability, language, immigration status, and sexual orientation.

The more people understand the true nature of racism, the more they understand that it affects all of us – people of all colors, ethnicities, and income levels. Since our society provides very few ways to learn about this, it can be difficult for many to recognize those times when racism is being used to divide us from each other.

Today, growing numbers of people of all backgrounds are demonstrating civic courage by standing up to name the effects of structural racism and call for racial justice. People of color and white people are showing that it is possible to use a clearer understanding of racial justice to strengthen their advocacy for all kinds of justice and their efforts to bring all kinds of people into dialogue and public problem solving. And growing numbers of white people are showing the power of “standing with.”

Create spaces for democratic participation: We work with hundreds of leaders who bring people together across all kinds of divides for honest, sometimes difficult, conversations that are organized to lead to action and change. Such conversations allow people of all backgrounds and views to build trust and create solutions to public problems.

It takes civic courage and skill to build a welcoming public space where people of all backgrounds and views can share honestly and listen deeply, especially in the face of so much division. It takes courage to take part in dialogue, to sit down with others, especially when messages of distrust and fear bombard us daily. And it takes courage for elected leaders at all levels to sit down with everyday people and commit to listening to them.

Yet, all of this is possible. Diverse coalitions of community groups, grass-roots leaders, and public officials are creating opportunities for all kinds of people to:

speak honestly and listen deeply to each other
find their own voices and leadership potential
dispel stereotypes
build relationships of trust that can nourish and sustain civic courage
deepen their understanding of the nature of public problems and the roots of inequities
explore each other’s views and find shared concerns
consider a range of possible public solutions
make recommendations to policymakers
and develop action priorities and plans they can carry out together.

We and many of our partners are working toward a society in which these opportunities and practices become routine – in the ways we relate to each other, strengthen community, solve public problems, and make public decisions.

In fact, that is what “everyday democracy” would look like.

Cultivate hope: The late civil rights leader Vincent Harding once famously asked: “Is America possible?” He wondered whether it was possible to create a multi-racial democracy that works for all people. His answer: “Yes, but only as we make it so.” Harding practiced civic courage in his own life, and then he shared his stories and lessons with many young people. He understood that advancing democracy was a multi-generational journey for the long haul, and that each of us can (and must) contribute.

At Everyday Democracy, we are committed to making America possible, to creating an authentic democracy that works for all. We stand against fear and for hope. We stand against demonizing others and for encouraging the voices and participation of all. We stand against implicit and explicit bias in ourselves and others; we stand for understanding and attending to the ways that structural racism has shaped our relationships with each other and how we govern ourselves.

There is great power in sharing stories of courage and hope and of how you are using these principles and values in your communities and in your work. It is possible for all of us to embrace civic courage by working to create positive change – in ourselves, our relationships, our institutions, and our systems.

Please share your stories and thoughts with us:

What does civic courage mean to you in this time?
What does it look like?
What are you doing to exercise it?
What are you struggling with?
What resources are you calling on?
What are you learning?

Please send your stories, thoughts, and photos to us at naflalo@everyday-democracy.org, and check back for updates from around the country. We stand with you as you take this important work forward. In this challenging time, your commitment and work are vital. Together we will make America possible.

About Everyday Democracy
Everyday Democracy (formerly called the Study Circles Resource Center) is a project of The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a private operating foundation dedicated to strengthening deliberative democracy and improving the quality of public life in the United States. Since our founding in 1989, we’ve worked with hundreds of communities across the United States on issues such as: racial equity, poverty reduction and economic development, education reform, early childhood development and building strong neighborhoods. We work with national, regional and state organizations in order to leverage our resources and to expand the reach and impact of civic engagement processes and tools.

Follow on Twitter: @EvDem

Resource Link: www.everyday-democracy.org/news/practicing-civic-courage-age-civic-anxiety

Equity in School Forums: An Interview with John Landesman

Posted on March 16, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 14-page article, Equity in School Forums: An Interview with John Landesman (2016), was written by Carolyne Abdullah, Christopher Karpowitz, and Chad Raphael, and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 12: Iss. 2. In the article, the authors interview Landesman of Everyday Democracy to share his experience working to address the barriers within the Montgomery County Study Circles Program, which he helped to coordinate. Landesman clarifies the importance between equality and equity; and how these play out when designing a process to effective address the power dynamics that arise within school spaces between admin, faculty, parents, and students.

Read an excerpt of the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the article…

For adults and youth, American public schools are a major entryway to public engagement. Not only are public schools charged with preparing students for civic life, but they are the custodians of parents’ educational and economic aspirations for their children, often the largest recipients of taxpayer funding in a community, neighborhood hubs that host public meetings and events, and institutions that are formally accountable to the community through school boards, parent teacher associations, and other public forums. Schools need active support from their communities to approve school bonds, attract donations, enlist mentors and volunteers, approve (or at least accept) curriculum reforms, engage parents in supporting their children’s learning, and address social problems such as academic achievement gaps among students of different racial and income backgrounds, bullying, and gangs. Yet, like other institutions of democracy, public school governance is often dominated by the voices of politicians and policy makers, professionals (administrators and teachers), and privileged citizens (parents of higher socio-economic status) (Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015).

In Maryland, the Montgomery County Public School system offers a hopeful example of how public dialogue can improve school governance. John Landesman, a Senior Associate at Everyday Democracy, coordinates the Montgomery County Public Schools Study Circles Program. The program engages parents, students, staff, and administrators in dialogue to address racial and ethnic barriers to parent involvement and student achievement in this multilingual, multi-ethnic school district. These dialogues have helped to build trust and collaboration, and increased involvement by parents of color, as well diminishing differences in achievement among students from more and less advantaged backgrounds (Childress, Doyle, and Thomas, 2009; Orland, 2007; Fagotto & Fung, 2009).

In this interview, Landesman explains how Everyday Democracy thinks about equity and equality, and how the organization integrated equity considerations throughout the process of organizing study-circle dialogues in Montgomery County, including recruiting and retaining diverse participants, forming agendas, facilitation, small group discussions in affinity groups of less-powerful participants as well as mixed groups, evaluation, and implementation of plans. The techniques discussed here can be adopted or adapted to forums on schooling and many other issues.

Equity and Equality
Abdullah, Karpowitz, and Raphael (AKR): Some people working in dialogue and deliberation have argued that instead of practicing equality by treating people 1 Abdullah et al.: Equity in School Forums: An Interview with John Landesman similarly, we should strive for equity by treating participants differently in order to create conditions that achieve fair discussion and decisions. Do you see this distinction between equal and equitable treatment as useful to our field and in your own work?

Landesman: I do see a distinction. There’s a picture that we often use in our presentations of three boys trying to look over a fence at a baseball game (see Figure 1). In the first panel, which shows equal treatment, each boy is standing on a box that is the same height. The tall boy can see the game over the fence, the middle boy can barely see, and the shortest boy can’t see at all. In the next panel, which shows equity, the tall boy’s box has been given to the little boy, so now all three of them can see the game. The idea is that everyone needs something different to participate in whatever they’re doing. But to me, this feels like the wrong question. The question should be, “What is the goal of the dialogue, and who needs to be in the room to make the dialogue effective?” If the goal is to have a variety of perspectives deliberating together, then organizers need to think about how to recruit for those different perspectives. If there are people who need something different to be part of it, but having their voice will make the deliberation more effective, then organizers have to use different strategies to get them there.

Think of successful companies like Coca-Cola. Their goal is to sell more of their products. They don’t just develop their product and then say, “OK everyone, come get it.” They spend a lot of time and resources thinking about how to get different kinds of people to buy their products. If the goal of deliberation is to have a richer understanding of an issue based on all the different perspectives that are in the community, than we need to spend time thinking about how to ensure that we get all those perspectives in the room.

In my experience, organizing for diverse perspectives is often an afterthought. Organizers plan the way they always have, and then say, “How do we get Latino participants or low-income folks, or people who have different political perspectives?” That never works, because all we’re doing is adding an extra strategy to what’s already been put in place. Successful organizing starts by asking, “What is the goal of the dialogue, and who needs to be in the room to reach that goal?” Then every piece of the organizing—whether it’s the outreach, the facilitation, the setup once you get there, where it’s located—all of those things are driven by who you want in the room and what perspectives you need to hear to make your dialogue effective. That’s a very different way of looking at it than saying, “We’re going to do it the way we’ve always done it, and now we’re going to develop a strategy to get to these so-called marginalized people.”

This is an excerpt of the article, which can be downloaded in full 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/vol12/iss2/art12/

Red Blue Dictionary

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The Red Blue Dictionary, in partnership with Allsides, is a collaborative effort with dozens of dialogue experts from the NCDD network, to create a site that gives definitions for a wide variety of words to help those all across the political spectrum better understand each other.

The idea for the website stemmed from the “Red Blue Dialogue brainstorming session” at the 2012 NCDD conference in Seattle, where Joan Blades, Amanda Roman and Jacob Hess decided to further develop the idea. Living Room Conversations, in early 2016, continued to support the effort by funding Jacob Hess to develop the site. Since then, all contributions to flesh out the Red Blue dictionary have been on a volunteer basis. You can peruse some of the highlight of the Red Blue dictionary below and find the full site here.

From the site…

This guide to America’s contested vocabulary has been written by a politically diverse team of 30 contributors from the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation. Inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s Team of Rivals, our editorial and contributor teams draw together dialogue experts from maximally diverse backgrounds: religious & atheist, liberal & conservative, Marxist & capitalist, anarchist & libertarian, independent & partisan, hippie & traditionalist, Neil Diamond fans & the rest of us.

Are Americans losing the capacity to disagree in healthy ways? If so, how can we restore (and preserve) our civic ecosystem?

What would it mean to get curious about our differences? (and maybe even smile a little..)

Welcome to a Less-Painful, More Enjoyable Conversation

TOPIC-SPECIFIC TALKING-TIPS
Overwhelmed at the thought of venturing into contested word-territory. Have no fear! Issue-specific guides have been created to lay the groundwork to get you moving.

DIALOGUE EXAMPLES
And you thought super-heroes were cool? Buckle up…because these dialogue pioneers are going to rock your world.

REAL-TIME WORD WATCHERS
Every day some word seems to take on a new meaning…or lose an old…or become weaponized. We’re keeping an eye on that (78 eyes, to be exact) – to help you stay on top of it all!

ACCESSIBLE, EASY-READING
Worried about slipping into some college textbook? Don’t be. We’ve written textbooks before and don’t like them either…!

POLITICAL HUMOR
When was the last time you had a good belly laugh? Beware – because we’re coming after you with political bumper-stickers (and lots of other giggle-provocateurs).

TROLL-PROOF COMMENT SYSTEM
Tired of spending your life listening in to ONE more nasty-aggressive-mean-spirited comment? (Us too) We came across an innovator with the answer…and we think you’re gonna like it!

JUICY QUESTIONS
Tired of (more) small-talk at family parties? Pull one of these mind-popping inquiries out and let the (better) times roll!

WORD MAPS
Confused at why that word means X to THEM and Y to THOSE PEOPLE? Lucky for you! We got some of THEM and THOSE PEOPLE to collaborate on a guide to help us make sense of it all…hope it’s helpful!

CONVERSATION CATALYSTS
Stumped with a word (or person-using-a-word) that you really-cannot-fathom? Check out some of our suggested links to videos and other reading sure to liven (and loosen) things up a bit…

Categorical
The following categories are offered as another way to help orient readers to the terms, which are otherwise organized alphabetically. These categories are organized thematically in general idea clusters – with each term potentially showing up more than once across the different categories:

Race, Ethnicity & Class
Food, Environment & Health
Gender, Sexuality & Family
Life, Death & Conflict
Spirituality, Religion & Doubt
Money, Power & Freedom
Government Systems & Agencies
American History & Tradition
U.S.-World Relations
Education, Learning & Knowledge
Hostility, Dialogue & Peace
Judgment, Interpretation & Deliberation
Liberal & Progressive Thinking
Conservative & Traditional Thinking
U.S. Elections 2016
New & Unusual Terms

Find the Red Blue Dictionary explorations of these categories at the resource link below!

Resource Link: http://redbluedictionary.org/

How are WE Doing? A Public Engagement Evaluation Platform

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

In June 2016, the Davenport Institute released, How are WE Doing? A Public Engagement Evaluation Platform, which was designed for public leaders to evaluate their public engagement processes and/or apply to be recognized as a “publicly engaged city” on a silver, gold, or platinum level. The Davenport Institute offers support to officials looking to engage their public better; and offer training and resources to help improve this process. Below describes how the platform works, the way it was designed, and the support provided by the Davenport Institute. You can find the link to the eval platform, access resources, and apply to be recognized for your public engagement processes here.

From the Davenport Institute

For almost a decade, the Davenport Institute has been researching, training, and consulting with public officials to improve the ways in which governments involve their residents in making tough policy decisions. This work has taken us throughout California and across the country, learning about and teaching the latest techniques in effective participatory governance.

We continue to hear from public leaders seeking to capture a “30,000-foot view” of their government’s practices in this area. That is why we are launching “How are WE Doing?” to be that lens through which you can evaluate your municipality’s public engagement processes.

There are two ways to use this tool:

Self-Evaluation: These questions are designed to help you think through your own engagement efforts. We hope they will help you identify areas of strength and weakness, and guide you to appropriate resources for making your relationship with residents even stronger.
Recognition: If your municipality is already doing a great job of legitimate public engagement, we want to know! This platform allows you to submit an application to be recognized as a “publicly engaged city” at one of three levels. Answer the questions, and share some of your story to encourage other local governments to keep engaging!

For more information, we’ve answered some frequently asked questions below. You can also email the Davenport Institute or give us a call at 310-506-4494 for more information.

How do WE Measure Up?
This platform has been developed based on conversations and observations from our training, grant-making, and consultation, as well as on a survey of accepted best practices in the public engagement field. We have relied on input from dozens of public officials, and our advisory council. All of this has been directed by the following members of the Davenport Institute task force to develop How are WE Doing?:

Artie Fields, City Manager, City of Inglewood
Rod Gould, City Manager, City of Santa Monica (retired)
Ken Hampian, City Manager City of San Luis Obispo (retired)
Dennis Donohue, former Mayor, City of Salinas

Together, this task force has developed a tool that will offer participants an accurate look at the quality and breadth of their own engagement efforts and allow municipalities to see how they rate and to apply for recognition as a publicly engaged organization. It will also help us gather data and stories about how we are all doing in our attempts to better involve our residents – information we look forward to making available to all participants.

What if WE aren’t quite there?
At the Davenport Institute, we are fully aware that legitimate public engagement requires more than just a desire to engage. We hope that as agencies, cities, counties, and special districts work through this checklist, they will begin to see areas where their engagement practices can improve.

As you explore this evaluation tool, we are also committed to helping you find the best resources to improve engagement with your residents. Here are some places you can start:

Training: The Davenport Institute offers both full-day and half-day trainings in the basics of public engagement, including aligning purpose and process. We also offer a shorter, executive seminar for upper level management and a variety of customized trainings. Or perhaps you are ready to tackle the world of online engagement. Our Gov 2.0 training is a great place to start. For more information on all of these options, visit our training page. Ready for something deeper, or looking to train engagement facilitators? We are happy to direct you to outside organizations offering facilitation and other trainings in the public engagement field. Email us to set up a call to discuss your particular needs.
Grant-making: Is a lack of resources to hire an outside consultant or facilitator holding you back from embarking on a project you would love to undertake in your community? Each year the Institute offers a number of public engagement grants to help California cities, counties, special districts, and civic organizations engage residents across a variety of issues. For more information, check out our annual grants page.
Resources: The Davenport Institute is committed to connecting cities to the public engagement resources that will help them succeed in legitimate public engagement. Check out the News & Resources pages on our website, and explore links to outside resources. And don’t forget to follow our public engagement blogs: Incommon and Gov 20 Watch.
Personalized strategizing and consulting: Looking for something more specific? We can help connect you to our broad rolodex of public engagement consultants, facilitators, and experts across the state. Email us to set up a call to discuss what support your organization needs to meet your public engagement goals.

Fill out the evaluation to find out how your public engagement process is and/or apply to be rated as a publicly engaged city here.

About the Davenport Institute
Since our founding as a multi-partisan and non-profit organization in 2005, The Davenport Institute (formerly Common Sense California) has worked to engage the citizens of this state in the policy decisions that affect our everyday lives. It is our firm belief that, in today’s world of easy access to information, and easy connectivity to others, California’s municipal and education leaders are seeking ways to involve the residents of their communities in the important issues they confront. Done legitimately, this new kind of leadership produces better, more creative policy solutions and better, more engaged citizens committed to the hard work of self-governance.

Follow on Twitter: @DavenportInst

Resource Link: publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/davenport-institute/evaluating-engagement/

End of Life: What Should We Do for Those Who Are Dying? (NIFI Issue Guide)

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 23-page issue guide, End of Life: What Should We Do for Those Who Are Dying?, written by National Issues Forums Institute and published on their site on November 2016. This issue guide provides three options for deliberation for participants to explore end-of-life decisions, as people are able to live longer and options for “right to die” become possibilities; what is best for those who are dying? In addition to the issue guide, there is a moderator’s guide and a post-forum questionnaire, all available to download on NIFI’s site here.

From NIFI…

What ought to be done at the end of life is both a personal and public decision. As our population ages, it is becoming a matter of great concern for the entire nation. Diseases that would have been death sentences a few decades ago are now often treatable.

This guide explores end-of-life decisions and examines options and trade-offs inherent in this sensitive and universal issue. Medical advances make it more likely that we will care for relatives in their final days, facing decisions regarding their illnesses or death—as well as our own. Even those who never face such choices will pay for them through tax dollars and the cost of insurance premiums. And as more states consider passing “right-to-die” laws similar to the one that took effect in Oregon in 1997, this debate may become a local one.

Under most circumstances, end-of-life decisions remain difficult and uncomfortable. A Consumer Reports survey found that 86 percent of those polled wanted to die at home. But fewer than half of the respondents over age 65 had living wills detailing their dying wishes, leaving them at the mercy of hospitals and stressed-out families forced to decide on their behalf. In 1990, the US Supreme Court affirmed an individual’s “right to die.” Later, in 1997, the court upheld New York and Washington state laws banning physician-assisted death, leaving it for individual states to decide their legality. These rulings established legal precedence for a national conversation.

This issue guide asks: What should society allow, and support, at the end of life? It presents three different ways of looking at the problem and suggests possible actions appropriate to each.

Option One: “Maintain Quality of Life”
That means when continued efforts to keep terminally ill patients alive a few more days or weeks result in needless pain and suffering, life-support treatment should be discontinued. At that point, caregiving efforts should be devoted to keeping patients comfortable and pain free.

Option Two: “Preserve Life at All Costs”
Do everything we can to prevent death. This means sparing no expense to extend the lives of those who are sick. It should be difficult for doctors to give up on patients, and the end must not be brought about by deliberate medical neglect or intervention. Right-to-die laws must be repealed.

Option Three: “My Right, My Choice”
The freedoms we value so highly in choosing how we live should not be taken away from us at the end of our lives. People should have the right to end their own lives and to enlist their doctors in helping them to die when a terminal illness leaves nothing to look forward to but higher levels of pain and suffering.

Preview the trailer for this issue guide’s starter video above and buy the video and full issue guide on NIFI’s site here.

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: www.nifi.org/en/issue-guide/end-life

Shaping Our Towns and Cities (IF Discussion Guide)

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 40-page discussion guide, Shaping Our Towns and Cities, was published by the Interactivity Foundation in 2014 and edited by Jeff Prudhomme. The guide offers seven contrasting public policies to consider when shaping our towns and cities. These policies are broad approaches on how to design our communities; and while not exhaustive, these are mean to provide a starting point for creating public policy that supports thriving communities.

You can view the discussion guide in full on IF’s site and it can also be downloaded as a PDF for free here.

From the introduction…

As we look to the future of our towns and cities, what choices might we face about their design and development? From this one core question many more follow.

What basic vision of community design might guide our decisions? What makes good community design? What makes a good place to live? What values might guide our community design decisions? What if our values are in conflict?

The appearance of a community (its aesthetic qualities) is often a key value for many people. What would it take to design beautiful towns or cities? What about designing a community for a thriving economy? Some people value a sense of social connection in a community. Can we design towns and cities for a thriving community life? Can we have communities where young and old live together, where people are urged to stay rather than move to a new community in their later years? Can we design communities in a way that encourages interactions among all kinds of people who live there?

Cities and towns grow beyond their boundary lines as newcomers and immigrants arrive. Populations change with new languages and cultures. Cities also shrink as industries die off or as young people seek opportunity elsewhere. How can community design take account of such changes? What are the environmental considerations regarding community size or community design? How might we harmonize the constructed environment of our communities with the natural environment surrounding them?

Many community design and development decisions depend on transportation policy. Could our transportation decisions be the key to designing our communities? What model of transportation might we embrace as we design our towns and cities? The sprawling design, or lack of apparent design, of many communities depends on widespread car ownership.

What if people need or want other transportation options? What happens if fuel and energy costs spike to the point where car-centered designs are no longer tenable for most people?

Of course many of our community design decisions depend on funding. Our models for funding housing, infrastructure, public spaces, and so on determine much about the design and development of our towns and cities. Finance models determine who gets to live where, in what kind of housing, in what kind of neighborhood, and with what kind of transportation options. They determine the kind of infrastructure we have and the public and private spaces that make up a town or city. What different funding models might there be?

The direction of community design decisions also depends on who gets to make them. These decisions depend on governmental structures based on boundaries that might no longer make sense for a highly mobile society. What happens when the realities of our cities expand beyond the reach of traditional governance structures? Over time, we’ve seen cities expand into “greater metropolitan areas,” megacities, or interconnected urban corridors with increasingly urbanized suburbs and edge cities. Could we coordinate community design policy across a region rather than patching together policies from isolated jurisdictions? Could we harmonize community design decisions across various governmental agencies so we could better integrate, say, our environmental, transportation, economic, and housing policies?

These are just some of the many questions that might come up when you think about public policy for shaping our towns and cities. What other big questions can you imagine emerging in our future?

A group of your fellow citizens explored questions and concerns such as these over the course of roughly a year as part of an Interactivity Foundation discussion project. Some of the participants were experts in various fields related to community design and development. Others were simply interested citizens. All of them agreed to explore perspectives beyond their own and to develop diverging policy possibilities beyond their own preferences.

These explorations are loosely focused on “urban design.” In this case, “urban” isn’t limited to major cities or high-population centers. Instead, you could think of urban as indicating a settlement where people are living in proximity to one another and where they face shared decisions about how to design and develop the built environment of that community. As you explore these ideas, try not to get bogged down in disputes over what counts as “urban” or over the size of the communities under discussion. In this project, the participants used “town” or “city” in non-technical ways to talk about settlements of various sizes where communities face public decisions about how to design or structure their settlements.

The PDF version of this report is available for download here.

About the Interactivity Foundation
The Interactivity Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that works to enhance the process and expand the scope of our public discussions through facilitated small-group discussion of multiple and contrasting possibilities. The Foundation does not engage in political advocacy for itself, any other organization or group, or on behalf of any of the policy possibilities described in its discussion guidebooks. For more information, see the Foundation’s website atwww.interactivityfoundation.org.

Follow on Twitter: @IFTalks

Resource Link: www.interactivityfoundation.org/discussions/shaping-our-towns-cities

Ideals of Inclusion in Deliberation

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 23-page article, Ideals of Inclusion in Deliberation, was written by Christopher Karpowitz and Chad Raphael, and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 12: Iss. 2. In the article, Karpowitz and Raphael, build off of previous research they performed regarding inclusivity within democratic deliberation.

They propose four ideals of inclusion summarized in the abstract, “These principles of inclusion depend not only on the goals of a deliberation, but also on its level of empowerment in the political system, and its openness to all who want to participate. Holistic and open deliberations can most legitimately incorporate and decide for the people as a whole if they are open to all who want to participate and affirmatively recruit perspectives that would be underrepresented otherwise. Chicago Community Policing beat meetings offer an example. Holistic and restricted forums (such as the latter stages of some participatory budgeting processes) should recruit stratified random samples of the demos, but must also ensure that problems of tokenism are overcome by including a critical mass of the least powerful perspectives, so that their views can be aired and heard more fully and effectively. Forums that aim to improve relations between social sectors and peoples should provide open access for all who are affected by the issues (relational and open), if possible, or recruit a stratified random sample of all affected, when necessary (relational and restricted). In either case, proportional representation of the least advantaged perspectives is necessary. However, when deliberation focuses on relations between a disempowered group and the rest of society, or between unequal peoples, it is often most legitimate to over-sample the least powerful and even to create opportunities for the disempowered to deliberate among themselves so that their perspectives can be adequately represented in small and large group discussions. We illustrate this discussion with examples of atypical Deliberative Polls on Australia’s reconciliation with its indigenous community and the Roma ethnic minority in Europe.”

Read an excerpt of the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the article…

Tensions between equality and equity occur at every stage of public deliberation in civic forums, but perhaps nowhere more than with respect to the question of inclusion. Given that deliberative theory is premised on the idea of free and equal citizens exchanging reasons and making decisions together, an abiding concern from both critics and champions of deliberative approaches has centered around whether background inequalities harm disadvantaged groups at various points in the deliberative process (Young, 2000). Such harm may occur prior to any reasons being exchanged at all when inequalities shape who is able to show up to deliberate in the first place. As Gutmann and Thompson put it, “When power is distributed unequally and when money substantially affects who has access to the deliberative forum, the results of deliberation in practice are likely to reflect these inequalities, and therefore lead, in many cases, to unjust outcomes” (2004, p. 48).

A common response to such concerns has been to focus on the representativeness of the deliberating group, making sure that forums are a microcosm of some larger population, whether international, national, or local. One strategy for maximizing inclusion is to open the forum to all who want to participate, while making special efforts to recruit a critical mass of people who would likely be under-represented otherwise (Leighninger, 2012). A second approach, which some deliberative theorists prefer, involves using random sampling to create a deliberating body that looks like the larger group being sampled in as many ways as possible, while giving each member of a population an equal probability of being invited to participate (Barber, 1984; Carson & Martin, 1999; Fishkin, 2009; Gastil, 2008).

Either approach prompts a critical question: who or what exactly needs to be represented inclusively? Many theorists of deliberation have argued that all who are affected by a decision should be represented in discussions (e.g., Cohen, 1989; Dryzek, 2000; Habermas, 1996), while recognizing that in an increasingly interconnected world, it is difficult to draw boundaries around those who are and are not touched in some way by an issue or a decision about it (Fung, 2013; Goodin, 2008). Thus, a deliberation’s legitimacy depends, first, on the justifications for defining who is affected by the issues on the agenda (Karpowitz & Raphael, 2014). Assuming that one has defined those boundaries appropriately, it makes sense to think of the population of all affected by a decision as a collection of perspective bearers most relevant to the issue under deliberation.

What are perspectives and why should we focus on representing them inclusively? In deliberation, participants should be open to reconsidering their beliefs, values, interests, and policy preferences, none of which can be assumed to be simple expressions of their ascriptive characteristics (such as ethnicity, sex, income, or sexual orientation). A perspective involves a structural location in society, which can, of course, be closely connected to social identities of various kinds, but in emphasizing perspectives, we seek to avoid essentializing those identities. Perspectives exist prior to deliberation and enrich discussion as they endure during deliberation. Iris Marion Young (2000) defines perspectives as the accumulated “experience, history, and social knowledge” derived from individuals’ locations in social groups (p. 136). However, as Young makes clear, perspectives do not determine the content of any individual’s beliefs, interests, or opinions. One’s perspective consists, instead, “in a set of questions, kinds of experience, and assumptions with which reasoning begins, rather than the conclusion drawn” (p. 137). In this sense, African-Americans can be said to share a perspective on public life that stems from their common experience of being perceived as black in America. Public forums about racism, income, policing, and many other issues would obviously want to be inclusive and representative of African-Americans without assuming that all black participants will agree on a set of shared interests or values, much less public policies. Similarly, a forum on free speech in schools should aim to include and represent students, who share a similar structural location with respect to the issue, even though they will not necessarily agree with each other about the specific rules, boundaries, and policies that might be proposed in a given school (for further discussion of perspectives, see Karpowitz & Raphael, 2014).

Perspectives are critical to the question of inclusion because a given perspective cannot be easily adopted by someone whose life experiences have occurred in a different social location than that occupied by the holder of that perspective or who has not shared the same set of experiences, history, and social knowledge. Mansbridge argues, for example, that the “vicarious portrayal of the experience of others by those who have not themselves had those experiences is often not enough to promote effective deliberation” (1999, p. 635). Of course, empathy is an important potential outcome of deliberative exchange, but such empathy is less likely if those with a given set of life experiences and perspectives are not present in the discussion. For example, a deliberative forum about contemporary immigration policy would likely be incomplete if it did not include the perspectives of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States from countries like Mexico or children born in the United States to parents who are undocumented. Asking that those immigrant perspectives be fully captured by, say, individuals who immigrated legally from Europe as adults is likely asking for an imaginative and empathetic leap that will be too much for even the best-intentioned deliberator.

An effective deliberative system should ensure that all relevant perspective holders are heard, and our specific focus is on how the least powerful perspective bearers can be included in civic forums. As Mansbridge (1999) has argued in relation to legislatures, a critical mass of more disadvantaged perspectives may be helpful for several distinct reasons. First, when disempowered perspective holders are present, their voices are more likely to be heard, and the stock of arguments, experiences, reasons, and evidence from disempowered perspectives is likely to be larger. Second, and relatedly, a critical mass may bolster the courage of the disempowered to offer minority viewpoints, and hearing those viewpoints from more than one deliberator may push others – both members of the disempowered group and those who are comparatively more empowered – to take those ideas seriously. Third, in many forums the giving and receiving of reasons occurs not only in large plenary sessions, but also (and crucially) in small break-out sessions and discussion groups, both formal and informal. A critical mass thus increases the likelihood that disempowered perspectives are heard throughout the forum. Fourth, when a greater diversity of disempowered viewpoints is present, no one deliberator is forced to be a token who represents the whole of her social group, a fact that works against an oversimplified, stereotyped, or essentialized view of who the disadvantaged are and what they want.

This is an excerpt of the article, which can be downloaded in full from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

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/vol12/iss2/art3/

Safety and Justice: How Should Communities Reduce Violence? (NIFI Issue Guide)

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 28-page issue guide, Safety and Justice: How Should Communities Reduce Violence?, written by Tony Wharton was published on National Issues Forums Institute site on January 2017. This issue guide provides three options for deliberation around how communities should address the violence within their communities. In addition to the issue guide, there is a moderator’s guide and a post-forum questionnaire, all available to download for free on NIFI’s site here.

From NIFI…

After falling steadily for decades, the rate of violent crime in the United States rose again in 2015 and 2016. Interactions between citizens and police too often end in violence. People are increasingly worried about safety in their communities.

Many Americans are concerned that something is going on with violence in communities, law enforcement, and race that is undermining the national ideals of safety and justice for all.

It is unclear what is driving the recent rise in violence, but bias and distrust on all sides appear to be making the problem worse. Citizens and police need goodwill and cooperation in order to ensure safety and justice. For many people of color, the sense that they are being treated unfairly by law enforcement—and even being targeted by police—is palpable. Others say police departments are being blamed for the actions of a few individuals and that the dangers, stress, and violence law enforcement officers face in their work is underestimated. Still others hold that if we cannot find ways to defuse potentially violent interactions between citizens and police, we will never be able to create safe communities in which all people can thrive and feel welcomed and comfortable.

How should we ensure that Americans of every race and background are treated with respect and fairness? What should we do to ensure that the police have the support they need to fairly enforce the law? To what degree do racial and other forms of bias distort the justice system? What should we do as citizens to help reduce violence of all kinds in our communities and the nation as a whole? How should communities increase safety while at the same time ensuring justice? This issue guide is a framework for citizens to work through these important questions together. It offers three different options for deliberation, each rooted in different, widely shared concerns and different ways of looking at the problem. The resulting conversation may be difficult, as it will necessarily involve tensions between things people hold deeply valuable, such as a collective sense of security, fair treatment for everyone, and personal freedom. No one option is the “correct” one; each includes drawbacks and trade-offs that we will have to face if we are to make progress on this issue. They are not the only options available. They are presented as a starting point for deliberation.This issue guide presents three options for deliberation:

Option One: “Enforce the Law Together”
Expand policing while strengthening community-police partnerships. According to this option, residents and police officers in every community should focus on working together in ways that ensure that everyone feels safe. Americans should be able to expect that they can go about their daily lives, taking reasonable precautions, without becoming the victims of violence.

Option Two: “Apply the Law Fairly”
Remove injustices, reform inequities, and improve accountability. This option says that all Americans should be treated equitably, but that too often, some people are treated unfairly due to systemic bias throughout the criminal justice system and, in many cases, the way police go about their work.

Option Three: “De-escalate and prevent violence”
Address the causes of violence and take direct actions to disrupt conflict. BY ANY MEASURE, the United States is far more violent than other large developed nations. While violent crime has declined over the past decades, there is still far too much day-to-day violence, and the threat of it, in many communities. Many US cities have more murders than much larger countries.

Follow on Twitter: @NIForums

Resource Link: www.nifi.org/en/catalog/product/free-safety-and-justice-issue-guide-downloadable-pdf

Promoting Inclusion, Equity and Deliberation in a National Dialogue on Mental Health

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 15-page article, Promoting Inclusion, Equity and Deliberation in a National Dialogue on Mental Health, was written by Tom Campbell, Raquel Goodrich, Carolyn Lukensmeyer, and Daniel Schugurensky, and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 12: Iss. 2. In the article, the authors share their experiences with the project, “Creating Community Solutions” (CCS), in which six organizations partnered to better understand how the public is engaged around mental health. By implementing three engagement strategies, CCS sought to shift the social norms around mental health and work to improve the inclusivity of how individuals and communities are engaged.

Read an excerpt of the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the article…

The ability to make progress on the nation’s mental health crisis has been limited not only by inadequate resources but also by the difficulty of addressing underlying discrimination, stigma, and cultural barriers. Indeed, some populations are especially vulnerable and underserved by mental health services. To begin, young people have high rates of mental health problems and low rates of seeking help; three-quarters of mental health problems begin before the age of 24. Second, common mental health disorders are twice as common among individuals with low incomes, and there is a strong correlation between mental illness, poverty, and crime. Third, communities of color tend to experience a greater burden of mental and substance-use disorders, most often due to limited access to care, inappropriate care, and higher social, environmental, and economic risk factors. Fourth, LGBTQ youth are sometimes rejected by their families and peers, and experiencing bullying and bias can lead to anxiety, depression, drug use, and suicide. The stigma associated with mental illness often leads to reluctance to find help. It has been reported that up to 60 percent of individuals with mental illness do not seek treatment and services (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2015).

The scarcity of safe environments in many communities to acknowledge mental health challenges and to address them systemically has limited the ability to create new solutions. Prior efforts to engage marginalized populations in mental health deliberations have not always shown positive results. For instance, in a study on the engagement of mental health service users/survivors in deliberative democracy, Barnes (2002) examined how notions of “legitimate participants” were constructed within official discourse and argued that the emphasis on rational debates could have excluded the emotional content of the experience of living with mental health problems from deliberation about mental health policy. A related study, conducted by Hughes (2016), on a deliberative system that connected federal policymakers with the disability community found that the discourse of the government agency failed to engage with social difference as a resource for inclusion and collaboration, reinforced stigma around disability, and excluded underrepresented groups. In this context, the project “Creating Community Solutions” (CCS) aimed to change social norms around mental health, reduce discrimination, and bring forward more inclusive opportunities for community engagement. Gastil (2014) contended that scholars in the field of public deliberation must produce not only rigorous research but also field reports that help reformers and public officials refine their methods of public engagement. By discussing CCS and its three engagement strategies, we hope to provide useful information and insights to public officials and practitioners interested in large-scale, solution-oriented public engagement projects.

Blending Deliberative Methods and Designing for Inclusion
Led by the National Institute for Civil Discourse, six deliberative democracy organizations partnered to launch Creating Community Solutions (CCS). A unique aspect of this project was the willingness and ability of the six organizations to collaboratively design the initiative using the strengths of each one to reach communities and to take the program to a national scale. The design included three main strategies. The first was Lead Cities, with mayor-initiated, in-depth deliberative conversations using town hall meetings and neighborhood outreach in six cities. The second, Community Conversations, varied in length and were held in every state in the country. The third, Text Talk Act, used text messaging as a method to get young people talking about mental health. Common to all strategies was a consistent set of topics and questions, a website with supporting resources, outreach into neighborhoods and affected populations to include individuals not traditionally part of the mental health system, and a prioritization process for developing recommendations to respond to mental health challenges.

The three strategies relied on small group discussions facilitated by discussion guides and other materials. These materials included factual information on mental health problems, challenges to key cultural populations, the importance of early identification and treatment, and key questions related to the mental health field. While the larger town hall meetings brought a more representative sample of the local population and generated longer conversations, the addition of community conversations and texting platforms enabled CCS to create more inclusive participation of various segments of the population and to achieve a national reach. Indeed, CCS wanted to build a nationwide conversation but also sought to approach it in a way that would allow voices not normally heard in the discussion of mental health to be considered and acted upon. This effort was guided by three main goals. The first was to reach deeply into selected lead cities with an outreach process that included a representative sample of the population and an oversample of youth and affected communities. The second was to reach broadly across the country by supporting community initiatives to ensure that conversations were held in every state. The third was to reach young people directly by utilizing their preferred communication practices through a readily accessible texting platform.

These strategies were relevant because conversations on mental health often attract the “usual suspects.” In many situations, stakeholder groups are among the first to sign up and take a prominent role, especially if they know that a national audience and local leaders are listening. While the design team understood that providers and experienced stakeholders would want to attend, CCS limited the number of mental health providers and registered participants to ensure a representative sampling of the demographics of the whole community. Through extensive outreach and the use of a questionnaire in the registration process, organizers were able to monitor the representative nature of the participants and achieve a truly community-wide conversation to hear how ordinary citizens wanted to see the system changed. As Michels (2011) noted, inclusion is often best achieved by engaging citizens through social networks, providing open access to forums, and striving to attract participants who are representative of the community as a whole.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

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/vol12/iss2/art8/

Budgeting for Equity: How Can Participatory Budgeting Advance Equity in the United States?

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 18-page article, Budgeting for Equity: How Can Participatory Budgeting Advance Equity in the United States? , was written by Madeleine Pape and Josh Lerner and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 12: Iss. 2. The article talks about the history of participatory budgeting, starting in Porto Alegre and how it has growth in the US. Two major claims of PB is that is it an opportunity to “revitalize democracy and advance equity”. Pape and Lerner share some of the challenges and strategies to equity within PB.

Read an excerpt of the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the article…

In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre undertook a radical experiment to alter the chemistry of democracy. After decades of dictatorship and thin representative democracy had cemented Brazil’s economy as one of the most unequal in the world, the newly elected Workers Party government attempted a new variant of democracy, one that mixed participation and equity. Its experiment in “participatory budgeting” aimed to redirect resources to those with the greatest needs – and it succeeded.

Over 3,000 cities have since tried to replicate Porto Alegre’s success by empowering residents to directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. Many processes have inspired high participation, but struggled to engage or redistribute resources to marginalized communities. Participatory budgeting (PB) has recently grown dramatically in the United States, from a pilot process in Chicago’s 49th ward in 2009 to over 50 processes in a dozen cities in 2015. The once obscure concept has been heralded by the White House as a best practice of civic engagement and by scholars as the lynchpin of a “new wave of democratic innovation” (Stoker et al., 2011, p. 38; White House, 2013).

As PB has expanded in the US, scholars, practitioners, and participants have made two main claims about its impact: that it can revitalize democracy and advance equity. First, proponents argue that PB builds the trust, accountability, and effective decision-making necessary for democratic governance (Lerner 2014). Second, they suggest that PB makes participation and funding more equitable, by bringing marginalized groups to the table and allocating more money to their needs (see Baiocchi, 2001; Fung & Wright, 2003; Nylen, 2002). In the US, PB processes have experienced relative success in including the voices of less politically empowered residents, but there is less data on how PB is making funding more equitable (Kasdan et al., 2015; Great Cities Institute, 2015).

Our organization, the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), has served as lead technical assistance partner for most US PB processes, helping over seventy cities, districts, and institutions develop PB processes that advance local priorities and goals. Although equity has often been a local goal, it has proven difficult to define, measure, and prioritize. In this article, we present the findings from a study of equity in PB that we conducted in 2015. Through semi-structured interviews with 17 PB facilitators and administrators, we explored two main questions: First, what common challenges to equity do practitioners face? Second, given these challenges, what can be done to make PB and its impacts more equitable?

We identified three key equity challenges and strategies to address these challenges. First, unclear goals shift focus away from equity, a challenge that can be addressed through stronger political leadership. Second, participants’ self interest often goes against equity goals, but this can be at least partly addressed by altering the process for idea collection and facilitating interaction between participants and other residents. Third, the limiting structures of budgetary and administrative rules constrain the potential of PB to address broader equity concerns, but expanding the scope and linkages of PB can help to overcome some of these constraints. By unpacking these challenges and interventions we hope not only to deepen the equity impacts of PB, but also to uncover new ways that participatory democracy can empower and support communities with the greatest needs.

Download the full article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

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/vol12/iss2/art9/

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