This 2008 book by Olav Eikeland discusses the concepts of dialogue and deliberation as they emerged in the writings of Aristotle (especially) almost 2500 years ago, but with a clear link to modern action research. The full title of the book is "The Ways of Aristotle – Aristotelian Phrónêsis, Aristotelian Philosophy of Dialogue, and Action Research." Bern: Peter Lang Publishers (2008). (continue)

This 2008 essay by John Gastil (professor in the Department of Communication, University of Washington) provides a definition of citizen deliberation and suggests broad categories for evaluation, including design integrity, sound deliberation and judgment, influential conclusions/actions, and other secondary benefits (e.g., positive changes to individual participants’ civic attitudes and improvement in local political practices). Evaluation methods are identified for measuring each of these evaluation criteria, and summary recommendations consider how to conduct a thorough, integrated project assessment with a small or larger evaluation budget. Download ... (continue)

Sherry Arnstein, writing in 1969 about citizen involvement in planning processes in the United States, described a “ladder of citizen participation.” The ladder of citizen participation ranges from high citizen power to low (as pictured). See Sherry R. Arnstein’s “A Ladder of Citizen Participation,” Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 216-224. Available online here. This article is about power structures in society and how they interact. Specifically it is a guide to seeing who has power when important ... (continue)

New Social Inquiry is an academic journal that publishes social research essays and relative works that are accessible to a wide audience, engaging and relevant for non-specialists, yet sophisticated and complex enough to push scholarship forward. Their first publication will focus on public dialogue. Here’s an excerpt from the guidelines for submission: Is there such a thing as public dialogue, now or in the past? If so, who participates, who leads, and what forms does it take? If not, how can it realistically be realized? ... (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)

The 50-page Understanding Participation: A Literature Review review brings together different bodies of literature on participation, including literature on community development, volunteering, public participation, social movements, everyday politics and ethical consumption. It looks at the historical and current drivers of participation, the activities and actors of participation and different theoretical approaches that contribute to a better understanding of participation. It closes with our emerging ‘participation framework’ that we aim to further develop and refine in the subsequent stages of the project. This literature review forms ... (continue)

The Rhetoric of Public Dialogue (2003) by Rob Anderson, Kenneth N. Cissna, and Meghan K. Clune, was published in Communication Research Trends, 22(1), 2003, pp. 1-37. The authors begin by reviewing recent mostly book-length works related to public dialogue within the categories or metaphors of access and space, difference and voice, deliberation, and civility (with a separate section for public journalism). They go on to discuss a number of the more prominent contemporary public dialogue projects. NCDD figures prominently in this section, and the authors ... (continue)

Drawing on an example of President Bush's decision as to whether or not to fund stem cell research, the author explores what it takes to make a possible constituency-altering decision for politicians. A multitude of factors go into the mix for the decision, including who is involved in the public in the debate and how those people turnout to vote in the election. The author goes on to look at the feelings of Americans in times of crisis and the leaders' actions in response. (continue)

The "ladder of inference" concept explains why most people don't usually remember where their deepest attitudes came from. The data is long since lost to memory, after years of inferential leaps. Being aware of the ladder of inference enables peopel to improve their communications and thinking by (1) becoming more aware of your own thinking and reasoning (reflection); making your thinking and reasoning more visible to others (advocacy); and inquiring into others' thinking and reasoning (inquiry). (continue)

Research has shown that internal relations in small groups are affected by members' relationship to the external world and the extent to which groups focus their efforts on extra-group relations. This article describes the conflict norms used to manage intra-group relations by members of a grassroots dialogue group in the U.S. whose members - US Jews, Palestinians, and others - came together to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (continue)