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)

Toward Wiser Public Judgment (2011) revisits and expands upon Yankelovich's seminal 1991 book, Coming to Public Judgment, which argued that people advance through several distinct stages to form politically meaningful judgments about public issues. In particular, citizens must "work through" the temptation to opt for easy answers or engage in wishful thinking, reconcile conflicting values, and come to terms with tough tradeoffs, before they can truly support a new course of action. (continue)

This 2008 book by Peter Block (Berrett-Koehler Publishers) is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation: How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? He explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen. Here’s an excerpt from a review of the book by Scott London: In his much-discussed new book, Community: The Structure of ... (continue)

The 2010 book, “The Handbook for Working With Difficult Groups: How They Are Difficult, Why They Are Difficult, and What You Can Do About It,” edited by Sandor Schuman, is written for group facilitators, team leaders, and group members — people who are concerned with how people and groups can work together more effectively. (continue)

Using primary sources from archives around the country, William M. Keith’s book Democracy as Discussion traces the early history of the Speech field, the development of discussion as an alternative to debate, and the Deweyan, Progressive philosophy of discussion that swept the United States in the early twentieth century. Available at Amazon.com. (continue)

“I believe we can change the world if we start talking to one another again.” With this simple declaration, Margaret Wheatley proposes in her 2002 book that people band together with their colleagues and friends to create the solutions for real social change, both locally and globally, that are so badly needed. Such change will not come from governments or corporations, she argues, but from the ageless process of thinking together in conversation. “Turning to One Another” encourages this process. Part I explores the power ... (continue)

Harold Saunders, former Assistant Secretary of State and negotiator of the Camp David Accords and now Director of International Programs at the Kettering Foundation, distills over 35 years of experience working with conflicts across the globe. This book describes how sustained dialogue can help conflicting groups of citizens move toward resolution. (continue)

Isaacs is a colleague of organizational learning guru Peter Senge (who wrote the introduction) and one of the founders of MIT's Organizational Learning Center. He also directed MIT's Dialogue Project, on which this book is based. Isaacs argues that organizational learning cannot take place without successful dialogue. (continue)

Ellinor and Gerard draw upon their combined 50 years of experience in organizations to show how dialogue can change the way we work by widening information arteries so that employees at every level begin to think along 'leadership' lines and take responsibility for how their actions affect the whole organization. Leading companies including Levi Strauss, Shell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and AT&T are unleashing the wellspring of power that flows naturally from the trust, mutual respect and spirit of inquiry that are at dialogue's core. (continue)

The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making is the best available training manual and sourcebook for facilitators, managers and leaders who want to encourage full participation, promote mutual understanding, and help groups build inclusive, sustainable agreements. It presents more than 200 valuable tools and skills and places them in the context of a lucid, realistic model of the dynamics of group decision making. The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making will help all facilitators improve their diagnostic judgment and increase their repertoire of methods and skills for supporting groups to make sounder, saner decisions. (continue)