This article by Tyrone Reitman was posted on the YES! Magazine website on November 4, 2011. Tyrone wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world. Tyrone is executive director of the newly formed Healthy Democracy Fund. He and his colleagues at Healthy Democracy Oregon worked from 2006-2011 to establish the Citizens Initiative Review in Oregon. (continue)

A new October 2011 report finds that California’s tough economy is causing cities, towns and counties across the state to rethink how they tackle some of their toughest challenges. The result is a new collaborative approach to governance. The report, “Golden Governance: Building Effective Public Engagement in California,” identifies seven communities across the state that have reacted to the current financial situation by rethinking and restructuring governance and their approach to citizen engagement. (continue)

This 2011 report by Tina Nabatchi and Cynthia Farrar for the Deliberative Democracy Consortium explores what elected officials know and think about public deliberation, as well as what they need to know to assess the potential value of public deliberation as a governance tool. Data from interviews with twenty-four state legislators and senior staff for federal legislators yielded some provocative results with practical implications for the field of public deliberation. Download the full report here.  Also check out the authors’ Powerpoint presentation (which you are ... (continue)

This guide moves beyond the traditional discussions of transparency as a means for good government, and considers the real life logistics of implementation for a federal agency, as well as the benefits that an agency may incur from developing a transparency program that fits their mission and improves their internal capacity. (continue)

Based on more than 60 interviews, this 2007 article by Peter Levine of the University of Maryland and Rose Marie Nierras of the University of Sussex explores the tensions between deliberation and various forms of political activism and advocacy. It identifies more than 20 objections to deliberation that are proposed by political activists in various countries and contexts. It concludes with suggestions for combining deliberation and advocacy. Download the article here. (continue)

In his 2006 article titled “Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance” (Public Administration Review, Vol. 66: 66-75), Professor Archon Fung of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government introduced a broad typology called The Democracy Cube, in which the first axis displays the authority and power of the participants in the process, the second axis shows who participates in the process, and the third axis reveals how decisions are made. (continue)

AmericaSpeaks‘ newly-released report, Assessing Public Participation in an Open Government Era:  A Review of Federal Agency Plans (2011), describes and analyzes the participation activities described in Federal Agencies’ Open Government Plans.  It identifies best practices across Agencies’ public participation initiatives and recommends improvements that would increase the public’s role in shaping federal policy. The report was supported by the IBM Center for the Business of Government. Before this research, the public participation elements of Federal Agencies’ Open Government plans had not been assessed in-depth to ... (continue)

Thirty-four managers from 23 different federal agencies and departments came together on March 30-31, 2009, to develop recommendations for President Obama’s Open Government Directive. Participants in the working session shared a deep commitment to empowering the public and transforming the relationship between the American people and their government. Together, they brought to the discussion a wealth of experience in public participation, collaborative problem solving and conflict resolution. This 51-page report (2009) compiles the ideas and recommendations generated during the event. At the working meeting participants ... (continue)

Champions of Participation is a 50-page report summarizing an international learning event held in the U.K. from May 31 to June 4, 2007. Sponsored by the Citizenship DRC and Logolink, the event focused on  the role of champions of participation inside government, whether they be elected officials or government officers. Download here. (continue)

Deliberative public engagement is a distinctive approach to involving people in decision-making. It is different from other forms of engagement in that it is about giving participants time to consider and discuss an issue in depth before they come to a considered view. The aim of this 18-page background paper (2008) from Involve and the National Consumer Council is to encourage and support deliberative public engagement in public policy. (continue)