Deliberation

Deliberation

What is deliberation?

The word "deliberation" means to consider an issue carefully, usually to make a decision or statement about it. At its best, "deliberation" means that a full range of relevant facts, factors, perspectives, options and consequences are being considered in a way that generates new understandings and possibilities.

Deliberation assumes a certain quality of conversation that supports people learning or reasonably shifting their perspectives as they proceed. Public deliberation implies, in addition, a certain amount of shared concern for the common good and usually a growing appreciation for the complexity of the situation, as people learn more about it and take more into account.

"Citizen deliberation," as the phrase is used in this site, means that people holding diverse perspectives are talking together respectfully about public concerns. All the participants' views are being heard in ways that add up to greater understanding than any of them had when they began the conversation. Usually there's a significant amount of face-to-face dialogue, although it is sometimes electronically augmented in some way. The term citizen deliberation suggests that the citizens involved will generate a statement or decision or activity that will benefit the larger community in some way.

The Varieties of Citizen Deliberation

Many forms of citizen deliberation are in use today. For example,

Citizen deliberative councils convene temporary groups of usually 10-50 randomly selected ordinary citizens to consider public concerns and report back to the community (or country) and/or to public officials.
Study circles bring together small groups of people to discuss briefing materials -- often used throughout a community to deal with a community issue, and then participants are convened at the end to form action groups
National Issues Forum organizes topical deliberative conversations through civic organizations around the U.S. and then shares the results with public officials.
America Speaks convenes hundreds or thousands of people using high-tech connections to integrate and prioritize their diverse perspectives.
Environmental roundtables bring together diverse stakeholders to creatively address controversial land use and other issues.
In deliberative polling, citizens are surveyed before and after they deliberate, to see how the deliberations have changed their opinions.
Future search conferences convene representative stakeholders from all parts of a community to look at their shared history, the forces currently shaping their shared lives, and visions they can all agree on and work towards.
Holistic Management weaves all the important people and resources relating to an issue together into the pursuit of a shared goal which covers all the relevant dimensions of the issue.
Our Media Voice Citizen Feedback Forums bring citizens together in live broadcasts to discuss how broadcast media serve their community.

Organizations:

National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation

Civic Practices Network

Deliberative Democracy Consortium

Citizen Science Toolbox