Three resources to help you get a sense of the kinds of legislation that can and do support citizen engagement in governance and decision-making, an NCDD listserv compilation, an amazing article by Lisa Bingham, and a 2003 global compilation by LogoLink. (continue)

The State Government in Western Australia has portrayed itself as a champion of revitalising local democracy and civic engagement. This can be seen in the plethora of community consultation/participation policy documents that have emerged from the Premier's Citizens and Civics Unit over the past five years. Dialogue with the City, a major participatory planning process that formed part of the development of a new strategic plan—Network City—for metropolitan Perth, has been heralded as an exemplar of deliberative democracy. This paper draws on deliberative democratic theory, performative policy analysis and institutional discourse analysis to interrogate the efficacy of this claim by examining the discursive practices leading up to and including the Community Forum, a major consultative and participatory event of the Dialogue Initiative. (continue)

Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE) released its 8-page white paper “An Evolving Relationship: Executive Branch Approaches to Civic Engagement and Philanthropy” in May 2010. This white paper is based on a briefing memo prepared for a White House meeting earlier in 2010 between leaders of the philanthropic community and Executive Branch officials. The meeting focused on the topics of service, civic engagement, social innovation and public participation and where there might be shared interests between the two groups. (continue)

Possibilities for Transformational Conferences is an 8-page primer on how to plan events for 50 or more people that are interactive, engaging, and generally fabulous. Author Tree Bressen (with Debby Sugarman and Sunrise Facilitation) briefly introduces techniques for making events more participatory and engaging, including Open Space Technology, World Cafe, Appreciative Inquiry, fishbowls, “speed dating,” storytelling, and more. Download at http://treegroup.info/topics/Transformational_Conferences.pdf. About Tree Bressen… From her home in Eugene, Oregon, Tree Bressen consults with a wide variety of organizations on how to have meetings that ... (continue)

The July 2007 report by Barnett Pearce, Ph.D. (pictured), Reclaiming Democracy: Changing the Way We Talk about Critical Issues, has the subtitle “A Report of a Project to Engage Legislators in Dialogue and Suggestions for Moving Forward.” This report to the Kettering Foundation describes and reflects on a project done by a few members of the dialogue and deliberation community which resulted in a meeting on May 30, 2007, called “Reclaiming Democracy: Changing the Way We Talk about Critical Issues.” Download the report here. Here ... (continue)

The Huffington Post released the article ”Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Can Work Together,” a piece by Public Conversations Project Associate Mary Jacksteit. The article shares two examples of pro-choice and pro-life activists using dialogue to defuse tension and reduce violence. The article can be found at www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-jacksteit/the-buffalo-case-pro-life_b_215067.html (continue)

This 2009 report authored by Alison Kadlec and Will Friedman builds on ideas developed in the 2008 publication Reframing Framing by summarizing research that explores the impacts of framing issues for deliberation (in contrast to framing them for persuasion). How one frames an issue can effect the ability and willingness of citizens to productively discuss issues and come to thoughtful judgments. The data suggests that when issues are framed for deliberation: Group discussions tend to be more analytic and less ideological. People tend to spend ... (continue)

Involve‘s 2010 report “Talking for a Change” provides new thinking for policy makers about how citizen engagement and dialogue can inform and strengthen more traditional forms of decision-making. In doing so it highlights how active engagement of citizens can revitalize our democracy and help tackle some of the biggest issues facing democracies in the 21st century. They suggest that the most obvious of these big issues are climate change and the aging society and set out a ‘typology of issues’ and make the case for why ... (continue)

Civility is much more than just behaving politely. This 8-page issue brief from the National Association of Counties (NACo) provides an overview of current state of civil dialogue in local government and examples of how counties can ensure a civil dialogue during county meetings. Published June 2010. Download In Search of Civility at this link or visit www.naco.org/research/pubs/ to see all NACo publications. (continue)

More to Give: Tapping the Talents of the Baby Boomer, Silent and Greatest Generation was authored by Robert Putnam, John Bridgeland and Harris Wofford. This was a report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates, and copyright 2008 by AARP. It discusses the civic behaviors and attitudes of Americans as they transition from work to retirement.  The central message of this report is that tens of millions of Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation, while not as civically active as ... (continue)