This monthly eBulletin from the Deliberative Democracy Consortium features updates from the deliberative democracy community. (continue)

Katie Howard, then-Manager of the Civic Engagement Initiative of the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center, submitted this commentary for the NCDD website on May 06, 2004 about the first regional NCDD-inspired conference. It begins "In 2002, while sitting at one of many round tables at the 1st Ever National Dialogue and Deliberation Conference, it struck me. 'I have to do this regionally.' The thought buzzed in my head, reemerging each time I thought it had passed.... (continue)

Matt Leighninger, senior associate at the Study Circles Resource Center, wrote this op-ed, asking party leaders to take note of the changing relationship between citizens and government on key public issues, such as homeowner protection, budgeting processes, and family-driven schools. (continue)

This 9-page chart introduces nearly 50 "techniques to share information."  The techniques range from websites and newspaper inserts to future search conferences and citizen juries. Includes brief descriptions, as well as bullet points summarizing things to think through, things that can go right, and things that can go wrong. (continue)

In this piece, begun on the NCDD wiki, Tom Atlee explores what a spectrum of public dialogue and deliberation might look like, from D&D that is unconnected to governance to "Citizen dialogue and deliberation with a coherent outcome that plugs into policy-making and decision-making where the citizens are selected to reflect the diversity of the community and the whole process is officially institutionalized and empowered such that it drives policy-making." (continue)

This article addresses the question of how to connect different forms of citizen dialogue and deliberation - from mass participatory contexts to more complex forms of deliberation with limited participation - to generate collective wisdom that is truly democratic. (continue)

In June 2004, Let's Talk America and the Democracy In America Project, two dialogue initiatives aimed at healing the left-right divide, co-hosted two dozen thought leaders from across the political spectrum at the Seasons Conference Center at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to explore the potential to bridge their political differences through dialogue. It worked better than anyone dared hope. Shared concerns and perspectives bubbled up in the space of dialogue that never show their faces in debates. On Sunday, June 13, 2004, after two and a half days of powerful dialogue, the group decided to sign a declaration. (continue)

Collective Intelligence is the intelligence we generate together through our interactions and our social structures and cultures. Inclusiveness (finding effective ways to include all of the parts of the larger whole) and the creative use of diversity are two key elements for increasing collective intelligence. (continue)

This project was charged with creating a toolbox of measures for evaluating democratic deliberation, a toolbox of use to practitioners and researchers of deliberation. With a couple exceptions, there are few measures of the consequences or quality of deliberation with a proven record of detecting effects or quality. Indeed, some observers have suggested that it is unlikely researchers will be able to detect most effects of deliberation, in part because the effects may be small and require repeated deliberation experiences. In an encouraging sign, this report introduces a set of measures that does detect strong effects of deliberative experiences, even in one-day deliberations with relatively few participants. (continue)

Is public deliberation rare? How widespread has it been? Are deliberation's organic practices at the very core of collective decision making? Did it exist before governments developed? The case studies included in Collective Decision Making Around the World begin to answer these questions. The research suggests, rather paradoxically, that deliberation may have been widespread throughout the world and throughout history. Taken as a whole, the case studies also show that deliberation is both fragile and powerful. It can be destroyed by top-down politics, but like a sturdy plant, if eradicated in one area, it reseeds itself in another. (continue)