The Cycle of Deliberative Inquiry: Re-conceptualizing the Work of Public Deliberation

As the deliberative democracy movement continues to gain momentum, the theories and practices that underlie that momentum must continue to evolve, particularly in terms of the connections between deliberative processes and policy expertise. This essay introduces deliberative inquiry as a way of re-conceptualizing deliberative practice as a distinct mode of inquiry which produces unique research products that can significantly impact the quality of public discourse and improve community problem-solving

From Wicked People to Wicked Problems: Building Local Capacity for Deliberative Engagement in the Era of Hyper-Partisanship

Opening comments from Dr. David Procter, Director of the Center for Engagement and Community Development (CECD) and Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy (ICDD) highlighted the public need for dialogue, the diversity of presentations in the symposium, and the contributions of ICDD to promoting civic discourse at Kansas State University. Provost April Mason underscored the need to address polarization and the constructive contributions of K-State. Dr. Carcasson, Director of the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University, presented a framework for addressing polarization through Deliberative Engagement. This framework invokes the “wicked problems” presumption, requires dealing with uncertainty, a focus on elevating conversations above winning arguments, and helping facilitate the negotiation of inherent tensions among approaches as well as developing a learning community

New African butterflies

Volume: XXI

New butterflies from the Kigoma area in Western Tanganyika

Volume: XXI

New African Lepidoptera

Volume: XXI

New African moths

Volume: XXI

Revised catalogue of the African Sphingidae (Lepidoptera) with Descriptions of the East African Species

Volume: XXV

Do Experts Help or Hinder? An Empirical Examination of Experts and Expertise during Public Deliberation

We consider expertise in interaction during small group public deliberations. Taking communication as design, we analyze the intentional design of deliberative format using invited experts to support public discussions. Through discourse analysis of one expert’s interventions into the group discussion, we suggest how expertise might best contribute to public deliberation

Negotiating the paradoxes of poverty: presidential rhetoric on welfare from Johnson to Clinton

This project examines how Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton discussed issues of poverty and welfare from Johnsons declaration of War on Poverty in 1964 to Clintons signing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996. I argue that there are four critical tensions relevant to the debate concerning contemporary poverty in the United Statespolitics vs. policy, deserving vs. undeserving, help vs. hinder, and equality vs. freedomand the key to improving the manner in which the nation confronts the problem of poverty requires understanding and negotiating these tensions. The analysis reveals that the five presidents had a mixed but overall rather poor record in confronting the four paradoxes. In general they tended either to avoid the tensions altogether, or fall to one or the other extreme. That being said, the analysis also reveals that there is considerable common ground concerning some critical issues between all the presidents, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, ideologically moderate or more partisan. Foremost among these are the beliefs that equal opportunity should be the overarching ideal, work should be rewarded well, and those that cannot help themselves should be supported as generously as possible by the government. I conclude that the 1996 law, while based in part on questionable assumptions concerning the condition of the poor, could lead to a significant re-framing of the debate away from the generally unpopular focus on welfare and welfare recipients and toward the working poor and the conditions and difficulties under which they labor, which could potentially lead to other positive transformations beneficial to the American poor