Deliberative civic engagement in public administration and policy

Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 2014

This essay locates deliberation and deliberative theory as an important strand in a larger interdisciplinary and political movement, civic agency. The civic agency movement, and its related politics, a politics of civic empowerment, include a set of developing practices and concepts which enhance the capacities of diverse groups of people to work across differences to solve problems, create things of common value, and negotiate a shared democratic way of life. Stirrings of civic agency can be seen in many settings, including efforts to recover the civic purposes and revitalize the civic cultures of institutions such as schools and colleges.

Cultivating a Deliberative Civic Culture -2 Public deliberation could do much to improve municipal governance in Mexico.

American Review of Public Administration, 2010

This article reviews and synthesizes diverse streams of literature to assess the potential of deliberative democracy for American public administration. It asserts that the field should refocus its attention on the role of citizens in the work of government to help address the pervasive citizenship and democratic deficits in the United States. American public administration has an obligation to address these deficits because (a) it is required to do so by democratic ethos, (b) it has contributed to the deficits with its widespread embrace of bureaucratic ethos, and (c) it must find ways to effectively engage citizens within modern network and collaborative governance structures. This article identifies deliberative democracy as one potential method to help fulfill these obligations and explains how deliberative processes may help address the deficit problems. The article concludes by identifying a preliminary research agenda for exploring the potential of deliberative democracy for public administration.

2006

Based on an analysis of three South African participatory policy-making fora, the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), the Child Labour Intersectoral Group (CLIG), and the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), this paper critically examines some of the assumptions underlying "Deliberative Public Administration" (DPA) theory, and, drawing on Habermas (1996), articulates an alternative view of deliberative politics and of the role of civil society within it-one which shares with critics of deliberation a sort of scepticism about the possibility of rational agreement in formal settings (where discourses are generally among professional representatives and mostly about the accommodation of interests), and places action aimed at reaching understanding in the informal public sphere, where the preferences of citizens are still malleable, and it is possible for civil society groups to build communicative power by articulating moral arguments that motivate and mobilize the public. This form of power can then be used by civil society groups to counterbalance other forms of (non-communicative) power impinging on the formal sphere of decision-making. "A practical goal that does not rise to opportunity is unworthy; but one that ignores limitations invites its own corruption." (Selznick, 1966[1949]: xi) This paper addresses an emerging stream of research on the combined benefits of participatory decision-making and deliberation. We refer to it as "deliberative public administration" (DPA). 1 This literature is both advocatory and empirical. Its main goal is to promote a rejuvenation of democratic institutions and progressive politics by favouring direct civil society involvement in public policy-making. It centres on two claims: first, that a broadly participatory approach to policy-making-involving a wide range of social actors in addition to public actors-generates not just a richer texture of democracy but also more effective policies; second, that the various actors participating in the policy fora coordinate (or end up coordinating) by exchanging arguments based on principles or appeals to generalizable interests. To the extent that all potentially affected groups have equal opportunities to become involved in the process and propose topics, formulate solutions, or critically discuss taken-for-granted approaches, these

2021

The title of this study reflects the intention of its editors to include texts relating to both theories and specific deliberative practices with participatory budgeting as a leitmotiv in a concise study.The basic questions which the theory and practice of public policy try to answer is the question about desires in democratic conditions and at the same time an effective formula for balancing centralization and decentralization in decision-making processes. Participatory budgeting, as one of possible variants of deliberation, is one of those phenomena of public life, the quality of which depends on the relations of the parties involved. The shape of these relationships only to a limited extent depends on the ways of their current practice, because these methods are causally conditioned, and the causes lie in cultural constructions. That is why these relations are not easy to study; it is difficult to reach that deep, because it is difficult to both model the conceptualization of the problem and the methodological approach to such research. These are one of the most difficult and, at the same time, the most promising research areas of public policy. We hope that this book will contribute to their partial exploration. We hope that our collection of articles will show that governance practices can contribute to strengthening proactive public activities located in the area of the so-called civil democracy.

This article essentially discusses the necessity for widening the scope of electoral/representative democracy by discussing the process of deliberation and how that can lead to a better system of governance.

Critical Policy Studies, 2015

International Journal of Urban and …, 2006

Over the last decade scholars of urban governance and deliberative democracy have produced large literatures. Theorists of deliberative democracy have conceptualized the normative implications of 'deliberation' and explored real-world decision-making arrangements that approximate those ideals. Scholars of urban governance have theorized and explored the outcomes of different institutional arrangements for the governance of cities and regions. Whereas empirical democratic theory has increasingly been interested in local contexts, researchers of urban governance have been progressively more concerned about the implications of emerging patterns of urban governance for democratic accountability. However, despite the recent mutual interest among researchers in both fields, debates within these literatures frequently ignore each other and are not systematic. This introductory article reviews recent contributions that have fruitfully investigated the tension between deliberation and governance in a more systematic fashion, and concludes that our understanding of those issues is significantly improved by a research agenda that pursues an integrated approach.

Journal of Deliberative Democracy