Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are ... (continue)

The Civil Debate Wall—popularly known as ‘The Wall’—is a unique, innovative social media tool created by Local Projects for The Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida and funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation. The Wall creates constructive dialogue by providing a physical social media tool that connects large touch screens, a texting system, and a website. These three synchronized components create a single, seamless interactive experience for the broader University of Florida community to actively engage in local, ... (continue)

The Kettering Foundation’s soon-to-be-released book, Democratizing Deliberation: A Political Theory Anthology, brings together recent and cutting-edge political theory scholarship on deliberative democracy. Edited by Derek Barker, Noelle McAfee, and David McIvor, the collection reframes deliberative democracy to be sensitive to the deep conflicts, multiple forms of communication, and aspirations for civic agency that characterize real public deliberation. In so doing, the book addresses many of the most common challenges to the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. Here’s what NCDD member Katherine Cramer Walsh (University of Wisconsin-Madison) says about the ... (continue)

Jacob Z. Hess is a Mormon, a community psychologist, and a devoted conservative, while Phil Neisser is an atheist, a leftist, and a college professor. Yet in 2009, after meeting at an NCDD conference, they embarked on a two-year conversation about the issues that divide them. The result is “You’re not as Crazy as I Thought,” an entertaining dialogue about power, government, media, religion, morality, gender roles, sexual orientation, race, and more. Drawing on the latest debates in social and political theory, Hess and Neisser ... (continue)

Throughout California, most local agency efforts to involve residents occur occasionally as one-time public engagement activities that are focused on issues such as a general plan update, annual budgeting, a public works project, a public safety issue, a climate change plan, etc. Fewer cities and counties think about and “embed” a capacity to regularly consider and use public engagement tools as an ongoing part of local governance. This 2011 document from the Institute for Local Government Public Engagement Program (www.ca-ilg.org/engagement) provides several useful caveats for any ... (continue)

This deck of 91 full-color cards distills the core wisdom of the field: what skilled facilitators do over and over again to make things work. The content is more specific than values, and less specific than tips and techniques, cutting across existing methodologies with a designer’s eye to capture patterns that repeat. The deck can be used to plan sessions, reflect on and debrief from them, provide guidance mid-stride, and share responsibility for making the process go well. In addition to the card set (which ... (continue)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) is proud to launch the “Public Participation Guide“, an international public participation toolkit. It is a resource for agencies and organizations to help develop, plan for, and implement programs that engage the public in environmental decision-making. U.S.EPA has worked on developing this guide since 2009, initially for use in the Middle East and North Africa, but with potential for global application. It has now been introduced to regions and countries around the world. The guide was developed to ... (continue)

Each of Craig Freshley’s free Group Decision Tips is a quick one-page read that helps improve group efficiency, productivity, and creativity. At www.groupdecisiontips.com you can view a complete index of over 150 Tips and download PDF handouts of your favorites. Freshley is an NCDD blogger, and has shared some of his tips on the NCDD Community blog. Each Tip begins with a principle – a core concept, and ends with a practical tip – something that you and your group can do to bring more ... (continue)

Debategraph is a social enterprise that combines argument visualization with collaborative wiki editing to make the best arguments on all sides of every complex public debate freely available to all, and continuously open to challenge and improvement by all. It was co-founded by Peter Baldwin and David Price, who have been collaborating on Debategraph’s development on opposites sides of the world over the last five years –  and is evolving continuously towards the fulfilment of our long term vision for a new form of public communication. For a ... (continue)

In December 2012, Alberta Climate Dialogue released a series of short videos exploring the benefits of deliberative democracy, featuring well known practitioners such as Matt Leighninger (DDC), Janette Hartz-Karp (Curtin University), Edward Andersson (Involve UK) and others. These insightful snapshots of public engagement knowledge and case studies are a valuable resource for communicating deliberative democracy ideas to others. (continue)