January 27, 2010 Why Contrasting Possibilities? So much of what goes on under the name of political discussion is aimed at persuading people to accept certain public policies. And so much of what goes on in...
January 27, 2010 Making the Town Hall Work The “ambush” of US Congressional representatives over the summer of 2009 by the foes of national health care reform did little to endear expanded citizen participation to those who bore...
January 22, 2010 Seeing Ourselves From the Outside One of the things that a discussion can sometimes do is to help us to see ourselves from the outside. This happened at a recent citizen panel meeting that I...
January 15, 2010 Embedding Deliberation in Government If you were to ask a cross-section of elected officials and public sector administrators about the need for embedding deliberative process in government many might respond with indignation. “We already...
January 15, 2010 Learning and the IF Discussion Process Earlier last year, I came across a striking passage in a book on how computer “games” should be re-shaping education. One needn’t be familiar with the specifics of the game mentioned...
January 14, 2010 Why We Do Not Try to Forge a Consensus Among Our Panelists? Much of what goes on by way of facilitated group discussions in this country and around the world is aimed at forging a consensus of opinion amongst the members of...
December 1, 2009 Embedding Deliberation in Community Life The extended network that promotes citizen discussion places a high value on ways to make discussion ongoing and self-sustaining. This matter of the “stickiness” of citizen discussion is referred to...
November 30, 2009 Where Do We Make Public Policy Choices? IF public discussions are intended to help you think through the public policy choices you make. But it may be hard to see where and when such choices might actually...