Public Participation Trade-Offs or Synergies?
ref: Designing
Multi-Process Public Participation Programs
A SECOND CONSIDERATION
IN DESIGNING MULTI-PROCESS DIALOGUE AND DELIBERATION PROGRAMS
CREATIVE TENSIONS AS TRADE-OFFS OR POTENTIAL SYNERGIES?
There are many seeming trade-offs to consider in developing
a dialogue and deliberation program -- especially when we are
faced with choosing one process or another.
Although these trade-offs are often real -- given the usual
constraints of funding, time politics, etc. -- it can be helpful
to remember that often, these tough choices are not INTRINSICALLY
mutually exclusive. Instead, they can be understood as being at
the ends of a creative tension. The creative tension, itself,
is a resource. Both ends need to be present to obtain optimal
results.
If we realize, for example, that we COULD have both focused
deliberations and open-ended explorations, we may be able to design
programs that combine and modify processes to give us both.
This is important since many of the seeming alternatives can
produce powerful synergies when used side-by-side or in a productive
sequence.
For example: Public deliberations to evaluate pre-determined
options or positions (e.g., a Citizens Jury or an AmericaSpeaks
forum) may overlook promising but unforeseen options. Even if
time and money do not exist for creative inquiry involving thousands
of people, some online public dialogues and a few Dynamically
Facilitated focus groups done early on, could inexpensively generate
serious new options to add to the official list, increasing the
odds that a high-quality outcome will emerge from the final AmericaSpeaks
forum or Citizens Jury.
A number of these seeming trade-offs are listed below. Often
a "both/and" approach can serve us well. Sometimes,
for a given context, we may need to choose one especially appropriate
option Sometimes there may be components or stages in our process,
for each of which a different option may be most productive.
This list is only an initial draft. It could be expanded and
revised, and guidelines developed for how to most productively
use it. I have clustered the various elements into categories,
simply for ease of readability. In fact, many of the sets of alternatives
could fit within a number of different categories.
DIALOGUE ISSUES
face-to-face dialogue AND/OR technology-mediated dialogue
people feeling heard AND/OR people listening so they can learn
what they need to know
openness to all expressions AND/OR maintenance of order through
behavioral agreements, agendas, time limits, etc.
focused study, deliberation and choice AND/OR open-ended exploration
and creativity
ensuring short-term realism AND/OR evoking long-term wisdom
relationship-centered AND/OR outcome-centered
set aside conflict AND/OR resolve conflict AND/OR use conflict
for learning and transformation
consensus decisions (co-created innovations) AND/OR negotiated
decisions (compromise to achieve mutually agreeable solutions)
AND/OR voting decisions (majoritarian or supermajoritarian) AND/OR
no decisions (input or exploration only)
PARTICIPATION ISSUES
self-selected (open) participation AND/OR limited participation
(invitational) AND/OR microcosm participation (e.g., selection
for "whole system" or diversity criteria)
large numbers of people feeling engaged AND/OR high-quality
conversations
direct participation AND/OR vicarious participation (esp. via
media reports)
POWER ISSUES
citizens central AND/OR stakeholders central AND/OR decisionmakers
central AND/OR experts central
impact on participants AND/OR impact on public AND/OR impact
on decisionmakers and officials
serves citizen-community interests AND/OR serves stakeholder
interests AND/OR serves decisionmakers' interests AND/OR serves
bureaucratic interests
opinion input from public AND/OR government partnership with
public AND/OR public empowerment
support representative democracy AND/OR support participatory
democracy AND/OR support deliberative democracy AND/OR support
community or stakeholder self-organization
OTHER ISSUES
one-time events (e.g., address the issue for now) AND/OR ongoing
process (e.g., community learning system)
affordability AND/OR quality outcomes
time constraints AND/OR quality outcomes
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