Led by the Danish Board of Technology, World Wide Views on Global Warming (2009) is considered the first in-depth global citizen consultancy on climate change. WWViews established a model for the future inclusion of the world’s citizens in global policymaking. The novel and practical project design made it potentially possible for all nations on the planet to take part and to produce comparable results that can be clearly communicated to policymakers. World Wide Views on Global Warming involved roughly 4,000 citizens in 38 countries spanning ... (continue)

Written by NCDD director Sandy Heierbacher to expand upon the text on our “What Are Dialogue & Deliberation?” page. This resource provides enough details to enable you to decide which of these leading dialogue and deliberation methods you should learn more about. In addition to looking at which methods fit your intentions, you will need to consider which methods are aligned with your resources, timeline, and the people you feel need to be involved. The text below is drawn from NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework. AmericaSpeaks ... (continue)

This September 2, 2010 article by Joe Klein on the Time Magazine website compares Jim Fishkin's Deliberative Polling process with the kleroterion process used in ancient Athens (a citizen decision-making process that used random selection), and suggests that rather than appointing a "blue-ribbon" commission to study the federal deficit, Obama ought to have initiated a deliberative democracy program using Deliberative Polling. (continue)

All over the world, democratic reforms have brought power to the people, but under conditions where the people have little opportunity to think about the power that they exercise. In this 2009 book, NCDD member James Fishkin, creator of Deliberative Polling, combines a new theory of democracy with actual practice and shows how an idea that harks back to ancient Athens can be used to revive our modern democracies. (continue)

NCDD member Jim Fishkin was featured in a May 6, 2010 article in The Economist print edition. Jim is the Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford and creator of the Deliberative Poll. The article, titled “Ancient Athens online: Democracy is about discussion, not just voting” can be viewed in full at this link on The Economist’s website. The full text is quoted below. (continue)

After some roadblocks, the authors finally mounted a Deliberative Poll centering on electoral choice, this in connection with the British General Election of May 1, 1997. The weekend before the election, a random sample of the British electorate was gathered to the Granada Television Studio in Manchester, given a chance to consider the some of the key economic issues in the General Election campaign then entering its final days, and, at the end, polled on voting intention. (continue)

Building on the success of citizen juries and deliberative polling, Gastil proposes improving our current process by convening randomly selected panels of citizens to deliberate for several days on ballot measures and candidates. Voters would learn about the judgments of these citizen panels through voting guides and possibly information printed on official ballots. The result would be a more representative government and a less cynical public. (continue)

In this paper, the authors begin by setting deliberative events in a broader context of deliberative forums or arenas. The authors distinguish three potential arenas of deliberation: the 'normal, the 'informal' and the 'staged'. They briefly describe three well-known deliberative events, citizens' juries, consensus conferences and deliberative polls. After setting out the benefits and criticisms of these three deliberative events, the authors realize that although the criticisms raise important issues, they do not justify abandoning deliberative events. (continue)

Housed in the Department of Communication at Stanford University and established in 2003, the Center for Deliberative Democracy is devoted to research about democracy and public opinion obtained through Deliberative Polling. Developed by Professor James S. Fishkin, Deliberative Polling is a technique which combines deliberation in small group discussions with scientific random sampling to provide public consultation for public policy and for electoral issues. (continue)

This paper explores the effects of information and deliberation on the extremity of attitudes about public policy issues. It asks whether informed individuals have extreme or moderate attitudes and how attitude extremity is affected by Deliberative Polling. Much previous research suggests that information and extremity are positively related, but other research has found a negative relationship. It appears that the relationship between information and extremity is more complex than originally thought. I find evidence that the type of information an individual holds determines whether attitudes are extreme or moderate. (continue)