What's New
Another excellent overview of deliberative democracy is from the Civic Practices Network website, "Deliberative Democracy" by Carmen Sirianni and Lewis Friedland.
Deliberative Democracy Consortium is a professional affiliation of researchers and practitioners linked to the growing movement of deliberative democracy. It plans to develop relevant theory, innovative practices, increased capacity and real-world applications of deliberative democracy.
Dialogue to Action Initiative offers excellent resources on dialogue and deliberation of all kinds, as well as news, a calendar and shop talk for the community of practitioners and leaders in dialogue and civic engagement.
Multiple-Viewpoint Drama. What does a public issue look like when you see all sides in their raw, dramatic expression. Anna Deavere Smith created two monologue docudramas acting out the actual statements of people she interviewed who were associated with riots in Los Angeles and New York City. This could make the human complexity of any issue more real to decision-makers and citizens in their deliberations.
New URLs for these broken links:
Totally revised these items:
Philadelphia II has been replaced by its current name National Initiative for Democracy.
Living Democracy. Frances Moore Lappé and Paul Du Bois point out that "Democracy is not something we have. It is something we do." Democracy is actually a way of life based on very different assumptions than we're used to... (Their former Center for Living Democracy website is a great place to explore democracy book titles, among other things. It can be surfed through the Web Archive. Type http://www.livingdemocracy.org into the Archive's WayBackMachine, and when it gives you a list of pages, click on Jun03,2001 and start surfing...)
Consensus Councils bring together the full diversity of stakeholders around a contentious issue to agree on recommendations to policy-makers. These exist only in Montana and North Dakota, but a United States Consensus Council is being proposed.
Socioeconomic Democracy proposes dealing with democracy-eroding wealth disparities by periodically and democratically adjusting a Universal Guaranteed Personal Income and a Maximum Allowable Personal Wealth.
The Center for Consensual Democracy offers practical tools, a sequence of steps, and training for ordinary people to establish sophisticated civic sector associations staffed and funded voluntarily by citizens interested in shaping and managing their collective futures.
Community Initiatives provides resources and services to help communities organize themselves for enhanced quality of life. Their site has a great links page.
A new link for Civic Journalism.
Accurate Democracy - If we understand that different sorts of voting are appropriate for different situations, we can design "ensemble" legislative bodies that are inclusive, well centered, and decisive in their creation of policies that enhance the quality of life for the whole community.
By Popular Demand by John Gastil. Citizen panels are the seed from which the garden of effective deliberative democracy can grow. Here are five ways to use citizen panels to establish real answerability in electoral politics and the legislative process. For other ways to use citizen panels see Citizen Consensus Councils, Deliberative Inclusionary Processes and Citizens juries.
Deliberative democracy is outlined, and criticial issues explored, in this brief, dense, but clear academic review, "Is Face-to-Face Citizen Deliberation a Luxury or a Necessity for Democracy?" by Dr. John Gastil.
Deliberative Inclusionary Processes (DIPs) of many different types are being used in hundreds of instances around the world to involve the public in environmental decision-making. This report describes 35 varieties and reviews many important issues surrounding their use. (There's also a separate, less exhaustive review of 10 fascinating approaches to citizen deliberation, which goes into more detail on each one.)
National Initiative for Democracy. (NI4D) Many states in the U.S. have "initiative processes" whereby citizens can propose, qualify and vote on laws of their own creation. NI4D offers a very powerful model for doing the same thing on the national level, but with lots of quality controls and in full partnership with the existing institutions of representative government.
I also upgraded Citizens juries to boldface to reflect their widespread use (hundreds of cases) around the world, which I just learned about.
Demos. A U.S. national research and advocacy organization to help create a new long-term vision for American society by bringing into the public arena new ideas and new networks to address critical issues - especially strengthening our democracy and sharing economic opportunity more broadly.
The Innovations in Democracy
Draft Platform
which lists what we think are the cream of the crop of democratic
innovations
The Earth Charter is a people's charter of enduring fundamental principles widely shared by people of all races, cultures and religions. It is intended to serve as a universal code of conduct for citizens, educators, business executives, scientists, professional associations, religious and spiritual leaders, civil society organisations, and national councils for sustainable development.
Tobin Tax (named after Yale Nobel-laureate economist James Tobin) is a proposed international excise tax on cross-border currency transactions that could help tame currency market volatility and restore national economic sovereignty -- as well as raise billions of dollars raised could finance not only global environmental and human needs, but also -- and we believe most importantly -- democratic innovations like the ones mentioned on this page...
WTO: Shrink or Sink: The Turn-Around Agenda is an international campaign endorsed by over 1000 organizations from around the world, with a 11-step program for transforming the World Trade Organization into something that is nontoxic to democracy, community and life on earth.
"A People Science" by Alexander N. Christakis. Bringing out "the knowledge and wisdom of the people affected by a complex issue is necessary for the definition and resolution of the issue." But the necessary and suffient level of dialogue to accomplish this "is not easy to practice." Developing this know-how is what "people science" is all about. This article introduces the concept of Demosophia. The complexity of modern problems requires that we move from "the power of the people" -- which is the Greek meaning of the word democracy -- to the "wisdom of the people", or demosophia.
For an international academic site focused on direct democracy see C2D - Research and Documentation Centre on Direct Democracy
Referenda. It is possible for people to vote directly on proposals and legislation, and in many states they do. But a process that started out as a means to empower the grassroots has attracted monied interests like flies to honey. What can be done to fix up this basically great idea?
Pew Partnership for Civic Change. What workable solutions exist for communities? These folks have some interesting thoughts about collaborative leadership.
Human factors in parking enforcement. Designing a parking enforcement system that works for everyone in Chicago offers lessons in creating a democracy that could work for everyone. Taking into account how people actually think and feel and respond and function is crucial -- and it requires both expertise and the involvement of stakeholders.
Collaborative Leadership: How Citizens and Civic Leaders Can Make a Difference by David Chrislip and Carl Larson. Here's how to use collaborative process to generate civic will that can break through bureaucratic and and legislative gridlock to solve tough community problems (overview and examples available in this interview).
Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators, edited by Hazel Henderson, Jon Lickerman, and Patrice Flynn. Here are detailed, sensible ways to measure a dozen diverse aspects of our national well-being, so we as citizens can tell if things are getting better or worse, and take action.
Creating a World that Works for All by Sharif Abdullah. Poor, black, and radical, he knew the world didn't work for black people. Then he realized it didn't work for poor people of every color. But then he noticed it didn't work for middle-class people, either. When he found out The Mess we live in even degraded rich people, he broke through to some really interesting insights and experiences...
Summer camps for youth action: Every now and then you stumble on a summer camp that's all about helping youth make the world a better place...
Open Forums. Arny Mindell believes that the solutions to our conflicts and problems lie in the heart of the disturbances we try so hard to avoid, and we can find them there through a process which encourages all the voices involved to really speak to each other, and really be heard....
The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future, edited by Peggy Holman and Tom Devane. Details about 18 group/organizational practices that could empower our public life. Each method has at least a five year track record; provides dramatic results with a moderate amount of time and resources; involves people in a meaningful way; and provides a means to discover and share information.
Co-op America. Q: What if consumers, investors, employers and employees all knew they were citizens first, and that their economic actions had real impact on real people, communities and the world? A: They'd exercise tremendous power for a better world. Co-op America empowers all forms of economic citizenship.
The Cultural Creatives. 50 million people in the U.S. (and more around the world) -- liberal, conservative and beyond -- are creating the next wave of civilization, barely aware that they are all doing it together. If they woke up to that fact, democratic innovation would accelerate....
Reworking Success by Robert Theobald. There's more agreement for change than most of us realize, even among people in power. The core survival need is ecological integrity but this is only possible with effective decision-making. This, in turn, requires social cohesion achieved through a commitment to equity and justice. We can only find out what these changes imply if we provide people with safe spaces for conversation and dialogue.
Simplicity Circles and the Simple Living Network. Consumerism has stolen our lives, our communities and our world from us -- and we need to get clear on how that is still happening every day. Then, together, we can take them back and create new ways to live that contribute to the well being of people and the planet....
Awakening Technology. Trudy and Peter Johnson-Lenz, who coined the terms "groupware" and "using diversity creatively", have for decades advocated bridging humans and technology to faciltate collaborative exploration, learning and work. Their latest collaborative inquiry on Practicing Our Wisdom Together in Cyberspace explores dozens of questions vital to building a wiser democracy.
America Speaks organizes large-scale forums engaging thousands of citizens -- both face-to-face and through telecommunications links -- integrated with laptop-computer and keypad-polling technologies -- to deliberate on public issues and provide input to shape government policies.
Creating Community Anywhere by Carolyn Shaffer and Kristin Anundsen. Without community, democracy is empty. M. Scott Peck, author of another classic on community, The Different Drum, calls this "The most comprehensive book I know of about the community movement."
Mettanokit Prison Program. Real democracies don't have full jails. Empowerment, spirituality, peer counseling and -- above all -- community can transform prisoners into stable, valuable citizens.
Bioneers. A network and annual conference where vision and practice meet in the service of life. Paul Hawken calls it "central to the re-imagination of what it means to be human."
Beyond Left and Right by A. Lawrence Chickering. It is time to move public problem-solving from political professionals back into our individual and community lives. Political lables like "Left" and "Right" obscure more significant differences like those in both liberal and conservative camps who advocate "Order" (centralization) or "Freedom" (decentralization).
(expanded entry) Redefining Progress. It helps democracies to have some measure of how they are doing. Communities around the world have developed local statistics to measure their collective well-being. This organization, Redefining Progress, tracks such innovations and has also developed a national measure of quality of life.
(revised entry) The Center for Visionary Leadership. This values-based, non-partisan, non-denominational organization is helping an expanding network of spiritually-oriented voters and social innovators to successfully apply spiritual principles to tough social problems and effective citizenship.