Taking America's Pulse III (TAP III) was the third major national survey of intergroup relations conducted by The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ). The survey provides insight into intergroup relations in contemporary America and how, if at all, attitudes have changed in recent years. Data from TAP III demonstrates that, as American society grows more complex, intergroup relations are increasingly critical to social well-being and national progress. (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)

This paper proposes a normative framework for evaluating the democratic merits of collaborative policymaking processes in which authority is ostensibly devolved from higher levels of government to lower levels or from the public sector to the private sector. The framework casts the democracy of devolution in terms of six criteria: inclusiveness, representativeness, procedural fairness, lawfulness, deliberativeness, and empowerment. The framework is then applied to a random sample of 76 watershed-based stakeholder partnerships in California and Washington State. (continue)

In recent years a set of radical new approaches to public policy has been developing. These approaches, drawing on discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices, have come to challenge the dominant technocratic, empiricist models in policy analysis. The author brings together and critically examines this new work. He describes the theoretical, methodological, and political requirements and implications of the new "post-empiricist" approach to public policy. (continue)

This article challenges devolution and populist approaches to biodiversity conservation and forest management by examining several of the main assumptions on which they are based. (continue)

The principal objective of JPD is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some "deliberative democracy." By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen friendly form. The JPD actually has two websites - one for its "academic side" and one for its "practitioner side." (continue)

The discourse in encounter groups between Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens was analyzed to investigate factors that promoted or hindered understanding between conflict groups. A typology of seven categories, ordered on a scale from monologues that do not meet to affective and cognitive understanding, was used. A histogram presented percents of speech categories per encounter. Qualitative and quantitative methods exposed factors influencing group processes. Changes in speech categories were chaotic, as opposed to linear. Analysis showed an interaction between the pressure of the conflict reality outside and the internal group process. This article addresses the theoretical question of the goal of intergroup encounters. (continue)

This research project was commissioned by GTZ as part of their supporting the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) to explore ways in which dialogue can be used to address social challenges in South Africa. During and since South Africa's transition to democracy, Nelson Mandela has exhibited a formidable ability to forgive and suspend judgment, along with an awareness of the importance of listening to all sides. Pioneers of Change was asked in this context to map out a variety of approaches, and to provide an overview, case examples and commentary on each. (continue)

This very meaty 151-page final report to the Hewlett Foundation includes detailed case studies on West Virginia's National Issues Forums, Public Deliberation in South Dakota, Public Deliberation in Hawai'i, and Connecticut's Community Conversations about Education. Elena Fagotto presented a workshop on her research at NCDD's 2006 conference called "Embedded Deliberation: Moving from Deliberation to Action." She decided to share the report with the NCDD community since many of her workshop participants requested it. (continue)

In this first rigorous comparative study of participatory budgeting (PB) in Brazil, Brian Wampler (Penn State University Press, 2007) draws evidence from eight municipalities in Brazil to show the varying degrees of success and failure PB has experienced. He identifies why some PB programs have done better than others in achieving the twin goals of ensuring governmental accountability and empowering citizenship rights for the poor residents of these cities in the quest for greater social justice and a well-functioning democracy. (continue)