NIFI During NWOC and A Public Voice 2018 on May 9th

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

This week, people are hosting and participating in conversations around the country as part of the National Week of Conversation (and going on until this Saturday, April 28th). NWOC is an opportunity for folks to come together through conversation and build relationships, in order to continue healing the divisive state of our society. The National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) and the Kettering Foundation – both NCDD member organizations – have created an issue guide to facilitate public deliberation around immigration; which is both a resource for NWOC and to be featured in their upcoming A Public Voice 2018 event (#APV2018) happening May 9th.

A Public Voice is an annual event, created to engage people around an important issue through deliberative forums, then bring together Washington DC policymakers and deliberative democracy practitioners to discuss results of the public’s feedback on that issue. You can learn about the several NIFI events happening this week during NWOC, both in person and online (search “Common Ground for Action”), using this issue guide or their previous guides. We encourage you to read the announcement in the post below and find more information on the APV2018’s site here.

A Public Voice – 2018

For more than 30 years, the Kettering Foundation, in collaboration with the National Issues Forums Institute, has organized A Public Voice, which brings together policymakers and practitioners of deliberative democracy from around the country to discuss insights from citizen deliberations.

A Public Voice 2018 focuses on an issue important to all Americans: immigration. After extensive research and testing with citizens around the country, the Kettering Foundation prepared an issue guide for the National Issues Forums (NIF): Coming to America: Who Should We Welcome, What Should We Do? Citizen deliberations using the issue guide are taking place throughout 2018 in public forums around the country. In these public forums, citizens consider the options for dealing with a problem, share their views, and weigh the costs and benefits of possible actions. Forums are held both online and face-to-face, typically last 90 minutes, and attract participants of all ages from all walks of life.

Scheduled for May 9, 2018, this year’s A Public Voice will present early insights from NIF immigration forums around the country, giving policymakers the chance to learn more about citizen deliberation and its role in our democracy. The session will also include an exchange among policymakers and deliberative democracy practitioners about issues the NIF network might tackle in the future. In early 2019, the Kettering Foundation and National Issues Forums Institute will publish a final report on the 2018 NIF immigration forums, followed by briefings for individual elected officials, Capitol Hill staffers, and other policymakers.

You can find the original version of this on the site for A Public Voice 2018 at www.apublicvoice.org

Beyond Aggregation: “The Wisdom of Crowds” Meets Dialogue in the Case Study of Shaping America’s Youth

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

The 28-page article, Beyond Aggregation: “The Wisdom of Crowds” Meets Dialogue in the Case Study of Shaping America’s Youth (2017), was written by Renee G. Heath, Ninon Lewis, Brit Schneider, and Elisa Majors, and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 13: Iss. 2. From the abstract, “The present interpretive case study examined how an inter-organizational partnership facilitating five large-scale public dialogues on childhood obesity, held throughout the United States, carried out its commitment to engage nonexperts in solutions”. Read an excerpt from the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the introduction…

A handful of leaders across for-profit, nonprofit, and government sectors, including a nationally recognized medical doctor and nutrition expert, and directors from Nike, Inc., and the U.S. Surgeon General’s office, coalesced in a collaborative partnership of decision-makers under the name Shaping America’s Youth (SAY). Given their view that the so-called experts had failed to influence change, they agreed that the solutions to childhood obesity must be found in collaboration with ordinary citizens—“nonexperts.” This assumption led to SAY’s partnership with the nonprofit, public deliberation pioneer, AmericaSpeaks, whose influential 21st Century Town Meeting® model facilitated engaging citizens in solutions. 1 In line with the growing trend of large-scale deliberation meetings, these partners brought together citizens from a crosssection of community stakeholder groups in a series of public dialogues that would ultimately influence changes related to childhood obesity. The mission of SAY was “to assure that the voices of families and communities are integrated into local and national policy to improve the nutrition, physical activity, and health of children and youth” (SAY meeting minutes). The present study commenced when SAY was in its fifth year of organizing, which was devoted to engaging communities toward this mission through a series of town meetings. As scholars and practitioners, we were interested in the organizing question, how would SAY carry out its commitment to engage nonexperts in solutions? What we found was an instructive case study that a) provides a heuristic for eliciting the voices of nonexperts, b) documents perceived outcomes linking dialogic process and product, and c) challenges theoretical assumptions about the wisdom of crowds as simply an aggregate of individually held knowledge.

This paper proceeds with a theoretical understanding of the wisdom of crowds including two schools of thought—one absent of a deliberative communicative model and one inclusive of a communicative model of gleaning meaningful input from nonexperts. The communicative model we introduce is grounded in literature on dialogue, public dialogue, and deliberation. This literature provides the context for our findings. We argue that SAY chose to engage nonexperts in solutions with a meeting method grounded in dialogic principles. After describing the methods of the study, and the findings that explicate how nonexperts were engaged, we introduce several outcomes that participants perceived as a result of the meeting process. These outcomes suggest implications for communicative models of engaging nonexperts in solutions. They demonstrate the how and why leaders of social change may choose to communicatively engage nonexperts.

Download the full 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/vol13/iss2/art3/

Prompting Deliberation about Nanotechnology: Information, Instruction, and Discussion Effects on Individual Engagement and Knowledge

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

The 33-page article, Prompting Deliberation about Nanotechnology: Information, Instruction, and Discussion Effects on Individual Engagement and Knowledge (2017), was written by Lisa M. PytlikZillig, Myiah J. Hutchens, Peter Muhlberger, and Alan J. Tomkins, and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 13: Iss. 2. From the abstract, “Deliberative (and educational) theories typically predict knowledge gains will be enhanced by information structure and discussion. In two studies, we experimentally manipulated key features of deliberative public engagement (information, instructions, and discussion) and measured impacts on cognitive-affective engagement and knowledge about nanotechnology”. Read an excerpt from the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the introduction…

There are many desirable potential outcomes of participating in public engagements. Learning outcomes are especially important because knowledge is a prerequisite to offering informed policy input, which may make the input more useful and influential (Guston, 2014; Muhlberger & Weber, 2006). Prior research suggests deliberative public engagements, in particular, may improve public understanding of science and technology by providing participants with opportunities to study relevant information as they form their preferences (e.g., Farrar et al., 2010). However, not all studies find positive effects of deliberation (Delli Carpini, Cook, & Jacobs, 2004; Ryfe, 2005), and even when effects are found, it is difficult for researchers to identify the mechanisms responsible (e.g., Sanders, 2012).

Experiments investigating the effects of specific features of public engagement are especially important for advancing theoretical understanding of what features of public engagements work for what purposes and why, and to guide the design of effective engagements (PytlikZillig & Tomkins, 2011). In addition, because of concerns relating to issues of equality and engagement (Benhabib, 2002), it is important to examine potential moderators. Not all publics have equal information or influence relating to political or policy issues, and little research has examined whether certain deliberative mechanisms favor some groups over others (Fraile, 2014; Hickerson & Gastil, 2008; Karpowitz, Mendelberg, & Shaker, 2012).

Deliberative engagements include features such as provision of balanced information, encouragement of deep cognitive engagement, and group discussion (Fishkin & Luskin, 2005). Theory suggests these features may promote increased knowledge and potentially more well-justified attitudes and policy preferences (Chambers, 2003; Mendelberg, 2002). However, there are numerous empirical gaps in these theorized connections. For example, despite the centrality of deep cognitive engagement to deliberative theory, few studies of deliberative practice explicitly measure cognitive engagement, or the variety of other ways people may engage. Even fewer attempt to causally connect different forms of individual engagement to specific deliberative design features and outcomes, such as increased knowledge or understanding.

To begin to fill this gap, in the present studies, we experimentally varied features of deliberation (information, instructions, and discussion), and measured the individual and combined impacts of these features on individual-level engagement and knowledge. Further, we examined potential moderation by two other variables: gender—which is a longstanding basis of political inequality (Benhabib, 2002)—and individual differences in need for cognition (the tendency to enjoy and use effortful and deep thinking processes (Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, & Jarvis, 1996)—a variable especially relevant to deliberation.

We conducted our studies in the context of engaging college science students in deliberations about potential ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) associated with nanotechnology. While the college classroom context is not representative of the majority of public engagement contexts, it is one such context, and one that facilitates controlled experimentation. In addition, findings from studies of the design of deliberative discussions in this context can specifically improve the use of deliberative practices when helping students consider ELSI implications of new science and technology developments—a practice which is increasingly encouraged (Barsoum, Sellers, Campbell, Heyer, & Paradise, 2013). Finally, findings in this context may suggest possibilities that should be investigated in other public engagement contexts.

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/vol13/iss2/art2/

Testing Assumptions in Deliberative Democratic Design: A Preliminary Assessment of the Efficacy of the Participedia Data Archive as an Analytic Tool

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

The 31-page article, Testing Assumptions in Deliberative Democratic Design: A Preliminary Assessment of the Efficacy of the Participedia Data Archive as an Analytic Tool (2017), was written by John Gastil, Robert C. Richards Jr, Matt Ryan, and Graham Smith and published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 13: Iss. 2. In the article, the authors discuss how deliberative process design affects participants and the resulting policy, they then tested their hypotheses using case studies from Participedia.net, and finally offer implications for their theory. Read an excerpt of the article below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the introduction…

Experiments with new and traditional modes of public engagement have proliferated in recent years (Warren, 2009). In attempting to make sense of this shift in contemporary governance, democratic theorists, political scientists and participation practitioners have drawn inspiration from deliberative democratic theory (Nabatchi et al., 2012). From this approach, the legitimacy of political decision making rests on the vitality of public deliberation amongst free and equal citizens (Bohman, 1998).

A considerable body of research attempts to analyze the design, process, and consequences of exercises in public engagement from a deliberative perspective, with particular focus on randomly selected mini-publics (e.g., Fishkin, 2009) and participatory budgeting (e.g., Baiocchi, 2005). These designs, however, represent only a small proportion of the diverse universe of democratic innovations. Design features vary considerably among such processes, including the priority given to promoting deliberation amongst participants.

No official records, census, or statistics capture the presence of democratic innovations, let alone the kind of data necessary to test the robustness of assumptions within deliberative democratic theory. Researchers tend to be limited to case studies, often of exemplary cases that skew our expectations of democratic innovations. Larger comparative studies are generally within-type, such as among Deliberative Polls (List et al., 2013), Citizens’ Initiative Reviews (Gastil et al., 2016), and participatory budgeting (Sintomer et al., 2012; Wampler, 2007) or within the same political context (Font et al., 2016). Analysis across types and context (geographic and political settings) is relatively rare, since the level of resources required to collect the necessary cases is prohibitive.

The development of Participedia opens up the possibility of such analysis. Participedia (http://participedia.net) is a research platform that exploits the power of self-directed crowdsourcing (Bigham et al., 2015) to collect data on participatory democratic institutions around the world. It is designed explicitly to enable researchers to compare data meaningfully across types and settings, recognizing that such data is held by a diverse group of actors, who organize, sponsor, evaluate, research, or participate in democratic innovations. Participedia has existed since 2009 and currently hosts systematised information on in excess of 650 cases. With the support of a CA$2.5 million, five-year Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the coverage of cases globally will continue to increase rapidly.

This paper exploits the already available data from Participedia to offer the first systematic analysis across a wide variety of political contexts and types of democratic innovations to explore the relationships among design characteristics, deliberative process quality, and impacts on policy and participants. We begin with an account of a stylized input-process-output model intended to capture the relevant core assumptions of deliberative theory. The next section describes the Participedia project and platform in more detail, highlighting how it has been designed to allow the testing of deliberative and participatory theories across a range of cases developed in very different contexts. In the methods section that follows, we explain the challenges faced in coding effectively the Participedia data to accord with our model. This has necessitated not only the use of fixed data from the platform, but also content analysis of case descriptions while overcoming challenges of low levels of inter-coder reliability and missing data. The results show that there are interesting patterns of associations that emerge from the Participedia data. Many of these findings reinforce existing assumptions about the relationship between design, process, and impact, but some may surprise readers and warrant future investigation. We conclude with reflections on the implications of our findings for deliberative theory, our understanding of the design of democratic innovations, and the efficacy of Participedia as a method of generating comparable data in this field of study.

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/vol13/iss2/art1/

Searching for Balance: America’s Role in the World (Connections 2016)

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

The seven-page article, “Searching for Balance: America’s Role in the World” by Robert J. Kingston was published in Kettering Foundation‘s 2016 edition of their annual newsletter, Connections – Kettering’s Multinational Research. For the eleventh article of the newsletter, Kettering drew from Kingston’s book Voice and Judgment: The Practice of Public Politics which discusses the role America should engage in when interacting with international relations. Below is an excerpt from the article and Connections 2016 is available for free PDF download on Kettering’s site here.

From the article…

All of us, I suspect, while we were still young children, encountered some history-making event that we know was to change the comfort of our little world. We did not surely understand it, nor even really “know” what it was; but we knew that it “happened,” that it “meant” something, and that someday, therefore, we should have to cope with it. To the now elders among American citizens, such an “event” may have been Pearl Harbor or the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; to a very few, even Poland, or Neville Chamberlain getting off a plane from Munich, a piece of paper (signed by Adolf Hitler) fluttering in his hand declaring, more wrongly than he could imagine, “Peace in our time!” Or for a somewhat younger generation, it will have been 9/11—and new enemies, new friends.

The long and continuing sequence of National Issues Forums—which (as this is being written) have addressed something near 100 issues, nationwide, over the past 30 years— provides now a valuable indication of the progress of public thinking, and the continuities in it, over time, otherwise unavailable, the likelihood of which was perhaps not fully apprehended during the earliest years of the NIF experiment. America’s sense of its place in the world is one such continuing theme.

In the 1980s the country passed through the depths of the Cold War, which, in effect, culminated with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Well, this was perhaps not the precise “depth” of the Cold War, granted Sputnik, the space race, and the Cuban Missile Crisis; but the period was certainly filled with deeply troubled and passionate concern about the relative nuclear strengths of the two superpower rivals. Three times in that decade the NIF forums took on a consideration of the US-Soviet relationship. Then again, immediately following the end of the Soviet era in 1989, they turned to consideration of America’s role in the world. And in the fall and winter of 2002-2003, within weeks of the US attack on Iraq, citizens were again discussing “Americans’ Role in the World” in their National Issues Forums.

Questions of international relations and foreign policy present a particular challenge to citizens of democracies, especially if they see themselves as a nation of immigrants. For most of the past century, fortunate Americans thought of themselves as somewhat better off than the rest of the world, and perhaps envied by it! When wars have had to be fought, they have been fought in places other than the United States itself and caused less of its citizenry to be directly involved in fighting. And the outcomes of the Second World War and the Cold War seemed to place the United States in a position where it could provide extraordinary assistance to the rest of the world, while fearing virtually nothing from it. At least, so some leaders and many citizens like to presume, while others seemed sometimes to prefer to pursue a policy of strength through fear.

This is just an excerpt, you can read the rest of the article by clicking here.

About Kettering Foundation and Connections
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.

Each issue of this annual newsletter focuses on a particular area of Kettering’s research. The 2016 issue of Connections, edited by KF program officer and senior writer/editor Melinda Gilmore; KF senior associate Philip Stewart; and KF vice president, secretary, and general counsel Maxine Thomas, focuses on our year-long review of our multinational research.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn

Resource Link: www.kettering.org/sites/default/files/periodical-article/Kingston-Connections-2016.pdf

Apply for Technology and Democracy Fellowship by 4/15

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

As NCDD reflects on the ways in which technology can support face to face D&D in today’s Tech Tuesday, we wanted to share this fellowship opportunity which supports the technological work that enhances democratic governance. [By the way, you can still join the free Tech Tuesday here!] Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, an NCDD member, recently announced they are offering an unpaid, non-resident Technology and Democracy Fellowship; to create space for participants to build relationships, develop their work or research, and have a unique opportunity to dig into the bigger questions behind their practice. The fellowship deadline is April 15th, so apply now if you are interested! Learn more about the details of the fellowship in the post below or find the original here.

Technology and Democracy Fellowship

Applications are now open for 2018 Fellowships. Applications can be found here.

The Technology and Democracy Fellowship is part of an Ash Center initiative to explore technology’s role in improving democratic governance—with a focus on connecting to practice and on helping Harvard Kennedy School students develop crucial technology skills.

Over the course of the fellowship, participants design, develop, or refine a substantive project that is salient to their field. This project could entail research, writing, and developing strategy relating to each fellow’s work, or could take the form of a new platform, service, app, or idea.

Technology and Democracy Fellows form a virtual community through which they share ideas and resources, pose questions, offer feedback, and help one another with solving challenges in their projects or other work. The Kennedy School serves as a unique space for these technologists to take a step back from the day-to-day minutia working in the world of practice to discuss, research, and write about the bigger questions their work addresses.

Fellows also help students, staff, faculty, and other members of the HKS community to develop their understanding of major concepts and to build skills related to technology and governance. This knowledge sharing is primarily delivered through a hands-on, skill-building workshop that each fellow designs and leads once during the year on a topic of interest to the fellow (see past workshops here). Fellows can also develop personal relationships with faculty, staff, and fellows at HKS in the form of consultation and mentoring, event/speaking opportunities, and more.

The Technology and Democracy Fellowship is an unpaid, non-resident fellowship, so Fellows are not expected to reside or work locally. We invite Technology and Democracy Fellows to Cambridge at least twice during the course of the fellowship year (at the Ash Center’s expense) to give workshops, present their work, and meet with members of the HKS community.

Eligibility
The Fellowship welcomes mid-career practitioners with an interest in leveraging technology to improve democratic governance. Each cohort of fellows includes technologists with an interest or background in democratic politics and governance or public and civic leaders with technology expertise.

How to Apply
Applications are now open. Please apply here. The deadline for completed applications to be submitted is April 15, 2018. For questions, please contact Teresa Acuña at Teresa_Acuna@hks.harvard.edu.

Current Technology and Democracy Fellows
The 2017-18 Technology and Democracy Fellows are below.

Fatima Alam, Researcher on Trust and Safety at Google

Tiffani Ashley Bell, Founder and Executive Director of The Human Utility

Jeff Maher, Software Engineer for CivicActions

Marina Martin, Public Interest Technology Fellow at the New America Foundation

Aaron Ogle, Director of Product for the OpenGov Foundation

Mjumbe Poe, Co-founder and CTO of FixList

You can find the original version of this article on the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s site at www.ash.harvard.edu/technology-and-democracy-fellowship.

Canadian School of Peacebuilding

Posted on March 16, 2018 by NCDD Community

The Canadian School of Peacebuilding (CSOP), an institute of Canadian Mennonite University, offers a selection of five-day courses each June. Courses can be taken for professional or personal development or for academic credit.

The CSOP is designed for anyone between the ages of 20 and 90 who is interested in peace work, including not-for-profit staff and interns, activists and peace educators, community leaders, religious leaders, teachers and professors, students (undergraduate or graduate), and government officials. All participants need to be fluent in English. The school is designed to be an environment characterized by educating for peace and justice, learning through thinking and doing, generous hospitality and radical dialogue, and the modeling of invitational community. The CSOP is for peacebuilders from all faiths, countries and identity groups.

Information about registration, costs, meals, and lodging is available on their website, as well as course descriptions, instructor bios, videos, pictures and stories from past years of CSOP, and peace resources. You can follow them on Twitter, and find them on Facebook and Instagram. Inquiries about the school, especially regarding registration can be sent to their main email address: csop@cmu.ca.

Resource Link: http://csop.cmu.ca/

This resource was submitted by Megan Klassen-Wiebe, Partnership and Public Engagement Coordinator of Canadian School of Peacebuilding via the Add-a-Resource form.

TheChisel Releases the American Dream Survey Results

Posted on March 8, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

We are excited to lift up this article from Deborah Devedjian, Founder of TheChisel.com, on the recent results from their “What’s Your American Dream?” survey – and the results might surprise you! One of the biggest highlights they found is that of the 34 issues surveyed, Americans agreed on their #1 goal for 53% of those issues. NCDD was proud to be part of this coalition, in addition to many other organizations, including fellow NCDDers – Living Room Conversations, AllSides, and the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. We encourage you to read the announcement below or find the original version on PR Newswire’s site here.

Bipartisan Survey Shows Right, Left, and Center Agree on #1 Goal for 53% of 34 Issues

In an era of political divide and confusion, a bipartisan coalition has announced surprising results from its nationwide survey What’s Your American Dream?

“The results demonstrate that despite different vocabularies, favorite news channels, local customs, or professions, Americans maintain many shared values,” said Deborah Devedjian, Founder of TheChisel.com which spearheaded the survey.

Right, Left, and Center agreed on their #1 goal for 53% of 34 issues surveyed. For a further 21% of issues, they shared the same top 2 or 3 goals in varying order.

The survey addressed 7 themes: Economy; Social Justice; Liberty & Regulation; Health, Education & Care; Infrastructure & Services; Foreign Affairs; and Governance.

TheChisel.com’s survey grew out of discussions with former Members of Congress and everyday Americans. All are frustrated with being out of touch with one another. The coalition—30 universities, media outlets, and policy organizations across the political spectrum and the nation—reaches 58 million Americans.

The survey was hosted on TheChisel.com, a unique bipartisan public discussion platform.

“Given partisan stereotypes and soundbites, many commonalities will surprise readers, especially in Employment, Mental Health, Foreign Aid, Campaign Finance, and Elections,” said Erik Fogg, Editor of ReConsider Media.

“The widest divergences were in Guns, Environment, and Police. But even there, we see common ground among pragmatic, compassionate people who want to move the nation forward on American ideals of freedom, prosperity, equality, and security for all,” said Fogg.

Findings will be shared with the media. TheChisel will deliver the report to the President, Cabinet, Members of Congress, Supreme Court, federal agencies, and state governors.

“As a nation, we are frustrated and face uncertainties. We expect this effort will help guide our nation’s leaders to understand Americans’ goals and devise tactics to achieve those goals. It’s time for a new playbook,” said Devedjian.

The book will be released at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on February 27, 2018. Press and lawmakers are invited www.YesWeAgree.Eventbrite.com

The 100-page book features visually-stimulating infographics, is easy to understand, and appeals to a wide audience. Insights from American figures on liberty and freedom and personal comments from respondents add a human voice to the data. To order: www.YesWeAgree.com

Based on 1,318 voting-age Americans reflecting 2016 Census by gender, age, race, geography, income. Respondents self-identified for political affiliation and provided numerical rankings and 5,000+ personal comments.

TheChisel.com is the first and only online civic platform based on 100% bipartisan facts and proposals. No bias. No jargon. And fun, easy-to-understand graphics. Content is developed with recognized experts from both sides of the aisle working together. Our board, advisors, investors, and team reflect America’s full political spectrum. Voice your thoughts, engage with experts, and give your feedback to TheChisel community to realize America’s aspirations.

Universities: Pepperdine School of Public Policy, University of Georgia College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Mary Government and Political Philosophy Department, University of Missouri School of Journalism, University of the Pacific Political Science Department, Williams College Forum.

Media: Associated Collegiate Press, The Citizen’s Story, Exchange Nation, Independent Voter Network, ReConsider.

Organizations: ALL-IN Campus Democracy Challenge, AllSides, Diplomat Books, Future 500, Heartfelt Leadership Institute, Hope Street Group, Inyo County Clerk-Recorder, Living Room Conversations, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, National Speech and Debate Association, ProCon.org, Take Back Our Republic, The Democracy Commitment, The Policy Circle, Wellville, The Women’s Debate.

Sponsors: Gold: Ziggeo. Silver: Collen IP Law; The TAI Group. Bronze: AquaThority Pools & Spas; JGArchitects.

You can find the original version of this article on PR Newswire’s site at www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bipartisan-survey-shows-right-left-and-center-agree-on-1-goal-for-53-of-34-issues-300602892.html.

Free NIFI Issue Guides and Save the Date for APV 2018

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

The National Issues Forums Institute, an NCDD member org, recently sent out an announcement via their newsletter offering free copies of their Coming to America issue guide on immigration, if requested by April 2nd. These guides are to be used for deliberation and then the results are given back to NIFI for analysis, so that they can share at the upcoming event, A Public Voice 2018 (#APV2018) on May 8th. APV is an opportunity for NIFI to talk with policymakers and their staffers about early feedback from the deliberative forums on immigration and the role of deliberation in democracy. You can learn more about this offer below and sign up to receive updates from the NIFI newsletter here.

FREE Materials Offer!

It’s not too late to request your free issue materials

Coming to America: Who Should We Welcome, What Should We Do?

Please join us and help your community be heard.

In partnership with the Kettering Foundation, the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) is making the digital version of the new issue guide about immigration, Coming to America, FREE to download.

Also, for a limited time, FREE printed copies are available to forum conveners who sign up – REQUEST YOURS NOW.

All you have to do is plan to hold a forum on or before April 2, 2018 and agree to make sure participant questionnaires (also provided) get back to us for analysis and reporting.

About the issue guide
The immigration issue affects virtually every American, directly or indirectly, often in deeply personal ways. This guide is designed to help people deliberate together about how we should approach the issue. The three options presented in the issue guide reflect different ways of understanding what is at stake and force us to think about what matters most to us when we face difficult problems that involve all of us and that do not have perfect solutions.

How Information from Forums Will Be Used
Scheduled for May 9, 2018, this year’s A Public Voice event in Washington, DC, will present early insights from National Issues Forums (NIF) immigration forums around the country, giving policymakers the chance to learn more about citizen deliberation and its role in our democracy.

In early 2019, the Kettering Foundation and National Issues Forums Institute will publish a final report on the 2018 NIF immigration forums, followed by briefings for individual elected officials, Capitol Hill staffers, and other policymakers.

We hope you’ll join us in this important work by signing up for your free Coming to America issue guides by clicking here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2018APV

You can find the original announcement of this on NIFI’s newsletter, which you can sign up for here.

Review of Democracy, Deliberation and Education

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Keiva Hummel

The 5-page review written by Stacie Molnar-Main of Democracy, Deliberation and Education (2017), by Robert Asen was published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 13: Iss. 1. In the book, Asen compiled and analyzes case studies of three school boards’ deliberations over a two-year period and how they addressed concerns of accountability and policy change. Read an excerpt of the review below and find the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the review…

Democracy, Deliberation and Education is comprised of case studies of three school boards’ deliberations over a two-year period, during which board members addressed local educational concerns in the context of accountability and market driven state and federal policies. Through these cases, Robert Asen demonstrates how theoretical issues in deliberative decision-making manifest in the work of local boards as they decide how to approach issues like district extra-curricular activities, finances, personnel and open enrollment. Drawing on the work of deliberative theorists such as Habermas, Rawls, Dewey, and others, the book explores themes raised by the boards’ deliberation and argues that school boards are positioned to play a pivotal role in advancing the “Great Community” that Dewey envisioned.

The book includes five theme-based chapters, in addition to an introduction and conclusion. Early on, Asen references public sphere theory when he describes school boards as “strong publics” – publics engaged in both opinion formation and policy-making. As such, they serve as sites where “participants might engage one another to develop collectively perspectives and positions that each might not hold individually and to act on these perspectives and positions in charting a common course” (p. 35). Asen argues that school boards are distinct from most other examples of strong publics because they operate within an “education policy network.” This requires them to spend time interacting in state and federal policymaking environments, as well as in direct interaction with local constituents. From this unique space, the book explores how board members—as interlocutors— negotiate a policy environment which may constrain deliberation, while responding to contingent developments, localized needs and contested matters within their communities.

The next three chapters focus on individual cases and address the themes of ideology, scarcity and expertise. “Ideology” is explored through an analysis of one board’s decision to officially recognize a Gay Straight Alliance that had been informally meeting in the district’s schools. The chapter describes how dynamics of ideology interact in school board deliberations where participants’ individual commitments, district policy, and the law produce public tensions and board members are forced to make a decision under threat of a discrimination lawsuit. The next chapter considers the resources a district needs to deliberate productively. By examining budget deliberations in a community severely impacted by the 2008 recession, Asen explores how “scarcity” influenced the board’s decision to adopt a budget that would paradoxically result in a decrease in state funding. In this case, a system of scarcity—demarked by high community unemployment rates, a strained school budget, relative power differences among community stakeholders and perceptions of people’s economic suffering—influenced deliberations and produced results that were both non-rational and counter to the intent of state laws 1 Molnar-Main: Review of Democracy , Deliberation and Education seeking to ameliorate funding inequalities. The theme of “expertise” is explored through the case of a school board serving a more affluent community. In this school district, board members disproportionately engaged expertise over community values when making decisions about which students should be welcomed into the district under state laws promoting school choice. The chapter reveals how market models of expertise and education can pervade deliberations and limit the scope of information and concerns engaged in decision-making. This, in turn, can produce outcomes that weaken opportunities for public school students to learn in classrooms that reflect the economic, racial and ethnic diversity of the broader public.

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Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss1/art10/

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Review of Democracy, Deliberation and Education