Can the deliberative approach be promoted?
Joe Goldman, VP of AmericaSpeaks, comments in a post to the blog of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium:
I don’t know enough about the details to comment directly on what occurred in Ontario (I’ll leave it to Amy [Lang] and Jim Snider at isolon), but I will note that I think the defeat really does underscore the degree to which deliberation practitioners need to seriously consider the full change strategy when designing a deliberation effort. The challenge that we all face is to account for the political and communications requirements that go with empowering public voice. More often than not, we cannot rely on leaders or the public to be persuaded by the "enlightened" recommendations that emerge from our processes. Rather, we need to approach this work as part of a civic campaign that requires substantial strategy and resources for communicating and mobilizing around public priorities. Whether we are talking about recommendations from a Town Meeting, a Citizens Assembly or a Deliberative Poll, we must have better answers, strategies and organizations to take the outcomes of the forums into the political sphere.While I have questioned some of the methodology behind 21st Century Town Hall meetings and Jim Fishkin's Deliberative Polls, I think Joe is absolutely correct that the work of deliberative practitioners needs to be promoted. Of course, there is a tension in this, as deliberative processes are averse to any tactics which allow a particular position to dominate a discourse, as through marketing. Is there a "nice" way to do it that respects the position of libertarians or pluralists, yet provides the means for gaining an honest understanding of one another, without distortion?
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