The Planners of Color Interest Group (POCIG), a group affiliated with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), is pleased to establish the Edward Blakely Award. Announced in on October 13, 2011, this achievement award will be given each year to a worthy honoree who has supported the cause of social justice, particularly inRead… Read more »
A new guide can help citizens and local leaders decide how to make their communities more engaging, inclusive, participatory, and powerful. Planning for Stronger Local Democracy is built around two lists: the questions to ask about your community in order to take stock of local democracy; and the building blocks you might consider as partRead… Read more »
This article by Tyrone Reitman was posted on the YES! Magazine website on November 4, 2011. Tyrone wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world. Tyrone is executive director of the newly formed Healthy Democracy Fund. He and hisRead… Read more »
This 2011 report by Tina Nabatchi and Cynthia Farrar for the Deliberative Democracy Consortium explores what elected officials know and think about public deliberation, as well as what they need to know to assess the potential value of public deliberation as a governance tool. Data from interviews with twenty-four state legislators and senior staff forRead… Read more »
In the past two decades, “civil society” has become a central organizing concept in the social sciences. Occupying the middle ground between the state and private life, the civil sphere encompasses everything from associations to protests to church groups to nongovernmental organizations. Interest in the topic exploded with the decline of statism in the 1980sRead… Read more »
This is the pilot version of a new discussion guide from Everyday Democracy. Adapted from a 2006 guide created by LaGuardia Community College, One Nation, Many Beliefs helps people of different faith groups and secular groups develop relationships to work together in creating a community where everyone can thrive. Go to www.everyday-democracy.org//en/Resource.182.aspx to download theRead… Read more »
AmericaSpeaks‘ newly-released report, Assessing Public Participation in an Open Government Era: A Review of Federal Agency Plans (2011), describes and analyzes the participation activities described in Federal Agencies’ Open Government Plans. It identifies best practices across Agencies’ public participation initiatives and recommends improvements that would increase the public’s role in shaping federal policy. The reportRead… Read more »
In his 2006 article titled “Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance” (Public Administration Review, Vol. 66: 66-75), Professor Archon Fung of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government introduced a broad typology called The Democracy Cube, in which the first axis displays the authority and power of the participants in the process, the second axis shows whoRead… Read more »
Deliberative public engagement is a distinctive approach to involving people in decision-making. It is different from other forms of engagement in that it is about giving participants time to consider and discuss an issue in depth before they come to a considered view. The aim of this 18-page background paper (2008) from Involve and theRead… Read more »
In 2011, the University Network for Collaborative Governance and Policy Consensus Initiative jointly published this guide to help build collaborative competencies within the private, public and civic sectors. Co-authored by the University of Wyoming’s Dr. Steven Smutko and the University of Arizona’s Kirk Emerson, the 28 page UNCG Guide to Collaborative Competencies is intended primarilyRead… Read more »