Have you experienced organized disruptions in your public engagement work?  At last fall’s NCDD conference in Seattle, we had a great workshop on “Embattled Public Forums – When Vocal Opponents Try to Discredit/Derail the Process” facilitated by Susan Stewart Clark, Janet Fiero and Christine Whitney Sanchez.  Yet not much systematic research has been done to explore and learn from this phenomenon, how it effects our work in dialogue and deliberation, and how we can best handle organized disrupters. Our colleagues Kirk Emerson, Frank Dukes, Wendy Willis, and Kim Hodge ... (continue)

For those wondering what they might do to help heal rifts or navigate the difficult issues in our communities, Sarah Read at The Communications Center, Inc. offer two resources… The first is our essay on dialogues on gun violence which was recently recognized by the National Institute for Civil Discourse. It can be downloaded on our blog, and the end notes contain many additional resources: http://buildingdialogue.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/planning-for-civil-discourse-about-gun-violence/ We also recently published a workbook to help communities evaluate their readiness for difficult dialogues and to better plan for and ... (continue)

NCDD is the Core Collaborator of the highly regarded Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement Certificate Program (DDP&E for short).  The certificate program is now hosted by Kansas State University, and the first course launches next month! We wanted to alert the NCDD community to an opportunity to learn more about the program next Wednesday at 5pm Eastern on an conference call with program leaders.  You can sign up here to participate in the call. I have heard nothing but great things about this program, which ... (continue)

From the Participedia news page… The FACTS Initiative and CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation have announced a call for proposals on local democratic innovations for publication in a special issue of the FACTS Reports, on the 2013 website of the journal, and on the CIVICUS website. This special issue of the FACTS Report, in partnership with CIVICUS, is to promote, publish and publicize new projects and ideas on participatory and accountable governance of public institutions at local and national levels. This call for proposals ... (continue)

This extraordinary post was submitted by NCDD supporting member Janice Thomson. Janice has been working in collaboration with UIC’s Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement to map the D&D terrain in Chicago, an effort which has led to the development of a new Community of Practice for dialogue and deliberation practitioners in the city. NCDD supports the effort and we hope to see other members launching similar efforts!  - Sandy From Janice… I honestly didn’t realize just how ambitious trying to understand the use of dialogue ... (continue)

The latest edition of the Journal of Public Deliberation (released December 2012) focuses on participatory budgeting and its spread across the globe. Guest editors of the issue are long-time NCDD supporting member Janette Hartz-Karp from Curtin University, Australia, and Brian Wampler from Boise State University. Janette and Brian brought together an interesting and distinguished range of authors, as you can see from the list of articles below. Here’s how JPD introduces the issue: Since its humble beginnings in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in the early 1990s, Participatory Budgeting (PB) ... (continue)

I came across a very interesting article today on Boing Boing (one of the most popular blogs on the web) that is noteworthy for people in the NCDD community. Science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker’s thoughtful piece overviewed her findings when she looked into “what the science says” about the questions that are on many of our minds today in light of the horrific shooting in Newtown: Does gun control mean fewer guns on the street and less violence? Does encouraging gun ownership mean better protected people and ... (continue)

Since 2011, the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums have focused on the national debt, encouraging dozens of forums across the country to tackle this important issue.  Kettering has just released a report, No Easy Way Out: Citizens Talk About Tackling the Debt, written by Jean Johnson, senior fellow and special adviser for Public Agenda, highlighting the results of these forums.  From the report’s description… “This new report by Jean Johnson about recent citizen deliberations on the debt suggest the seeds of consensus on how to tackle ... (continue)

Focusing on “Educating for Democracy” The Kettering Foundation’s Connections series is an annual publication which focuses on a central issue or particular area of Kettering research.  This year, Connections 2012: Educating for Democracy, explores the issues and innovations within higher education and is being released alongside the recently announced National Issues Forums  ”Shaping Our Future: How Should Higher Education Help Us Create the Society We Want?” national dialogue initiative and issue guide. Also Available: “That’s Not Democracy” from CIRCLE Another report, this one from the Center for Information ... (continue)

For this week’s NCDD book club discussion on Democratizing Deliberation, Jan Inglis offers a summary of the chapter Sustaining Public Engagement: Embedded Deliberation in Local Communities by authors Elena Fagotto and Archon Fung. Jan has a background in applying research in adult development and complexity science to designing public deliberation and decision making processes in response to complex issues, especially connected to climate change and commons management of resources. She has recently been appointed to the board of NCDD’s sister organization, the Canadian Community of Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2). I ... (continue)