I had the opportunity to attend the National Coalition For Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) Conference in Seattle a few weeks ago and thought this was a great overview and blog post about the conference and the efforts in the field to make progress in strengthening our country’s and communities’ civic infrastructure.
Janice Thomson’s post “Americans Envision a Civic Infrastructure for Public Dialogue and Deliberation” first appeared on Involve.org’s blog last week.
Several key points from her blog include:
• Social capital serves as both the foundation and lubricant for a robust civic infrastructure — i.e., knowing and trusting one’s neighbors, public officials, and others with whom one must cooperate.
• Deliberative public engagement seems to be most sustainable when it is a process (not a project) that the community itself owns and which government officials trust.
• Engage politicians as politicians to support deliberative public engagement.
• Politicians in states with direct democracy (initiatives and referendums) appear to be more supportive of deliberative public engagement than politicians elsewhere.
• Politicians in states with direct democracy (initiatives and referendums) appear to be more supportive of deliberative public engagement than politicians elsewhere.
• Citizens must stop behaving like demanding consumers and take responsibility for their decisions.
• Courage is needed to engage a divided public on a growing number of contentious issues.
Read the full blog post: http://www.involve.org.uk/americans-envision-a-civic-infrastructure-for-public-dialogue-and-deliberation/
~Norma Ramos
UIC IPCE Staff Member
www.ipce.uic.edu