Sustaining Public Engagement: Embedded Deliberation in Local Communities

Describes nine communities using organized deliberation to consider public issues over several years and their accomplishments and analyzes how public deliberation addresses deficits in local democratic governance. Includes benchmarks and strategies

Ratcheting labor standards : regulation for continuous improvement in the global workplace

Ratcheting Labor Standards (RLS) is a regulatory alternative that aims to improve the social performance of firms in the global economy. Under RLS, firms disclose to a certified monitor, information on their social performance, minimally including working conditions, hours, and wages. The monitors rank firms on the basis of their current social performance, and their rates of improvement, and make these rankings, and the methods on which they are based, accessible to the public. This process, it is argued, encourages leading firms to strive towards superior social practices. Competition among firms, and monitors will help establish two kinds of standards:"best practices"defined by the most advanced firms, and"rates of improvement", shown to be feasible at various levels of development. Both continually"ratchet"upward as the best practices get better still, and firms find ways to accelerate improvement, in a race to the top. These, and other RLS mechanisms, would create incentives for firms to dedicate a portion of the ingenuity, and resources now devoted to product development to the continuous improvement of labor practices.Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Labor Standards,Children and Youth,Work&Working Conditions

Afterword: Does Deliberative Democracy Have a Role in Our Time of Political Crisis?

Since the first generation of deliberative democratic theory, and the ‘deliberative turn’ in the 1990s, many societies around the world have become more institutionally fragile, multi-dimensionally unjust, and deeply divided. Does deliberative democracy have a constructive role to play in in these more challenging times in politics? As scholars of deliberation widen their ambit to explore broader forms of political communication, interactions between directly deliberative and non-deliberative institutions, and the roles for forms of highly adversarial political action, developments in deliberative democratic theory can help to guide efforts to strengthen our institutions in the short term and create political arrangements that are more just and democratic in the longer term

Designing for Community Engagement

The programs and rules that affect Americans' daily lives and security are profoundly shaped by the regulatory and rule-making process within the Executive Branch of government. While federal regulation touches thousands of issues, from employment rights to environmental health, the process of creating these regulations is shrouded in bureaucratic mystery, disconnected from Americans' daily experiences, and rarely covered outside specialized media.The Biden-Harris administration has sought to broaden the role of public engagement in the process of government decision-making, with a particular focus on equity. In January of this year, the administration issued two Executive Orders (EOs) that called for modernizing regulatory rule-making and for advancing equity. In November, the administration put forth a management vision which includes three priority areas for building a more equitable, effective, and accountable Federal Government. One priority area is to improve the design of services and provide digital access in ways that reduce burdens, address inequities, and streamline processes.A key source of expertise on improving public engagement and informing execution of the EOs and the management vision are local leaders and organizers who, in cooperation with state and local government, have developed and tested more effective and equitable methods of participation. Local organizers, deeply rooted in the challenges and experiences of their communities, possess distinctive expertise. They offer not only illustrative examples of best engagement practices, but also approaches to designing processes that engage diverse communities effectively. These insights and practices include building concrete feedback loops into participatory processes, incorporating continuous consultation and engagement, and identifying ways to promote transparency and inclusion into the review process

Strengthening Models of Civic Engagement: Community-Informed Approaches to Inclusive and Equitable Decision-Making

For too long the federal policymaking process has been mysterious and inaccessible to everyone but the most sophisticated, elite stakeholders. Not only has this made the policymaking process exclusive to long-standing players with connections and resources, but it has also made it extremely difficult for most Americans, especially those from underrepresented communities, to be engaged in authentic ways with federal agencies and institutions.When the Biden-Harris administration took office, one of their very first acts was to issue an executive order to advance equity and racial justice throughout federal agencies and institutions. This was quickly followed by orders intended to transform the experience of interacting with government, modernize the federal regulatory process, and strengthen tribal consultations and nation-to-nation relationships. Together, these efforts push the executive branch to improve equity and racial justice through more inclusive policy processes.In this spirit, New America's Political Reform program and Harvard University's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation hosted a series of listening sessions to help government officials identify methods of stakeholder engagement among traditionally underrepresented and marginalized communities to inform policy even beyond the current administration

Beyond Backyard Environmentalism

From California habitats to Massachusetts toxics, the United States is in the midst of a fundamental reorientation of its environmental regulation, one that is as improbable as it is unremarked Minimally, the new forms of regulation promise to improve the quality of our environment At a maximum, they suggest a novel form of democracy that combines the virtues oflocalism and decentraliz.ation with the discipline of national coordination. In substance and spirit, this new approach to regulation grows out of the tradition of backyard environmentalism. For two decades, residents of Woburn, Love Canal, and countless other communities across the country have organiz.ed to reclaim authority over their lived environment These pioneers of citiz.en environmental activism typically fought to keep harmful activity out of their neighborhoods-hence the acronym NIMBY, for Not In My Backyard. In their struggles to protect themselves and their children from poisoned air, soil, and water, ordinary citiz.ens have often been pitted against certified experts from corporations, government, and even big environmental organiz.ations

Ripe to be Heard: Worker Voice in the Fair Food Programme

The Fair Food Program (FFP) provides a mechanism through which agricultural workers’ collective voice is expressed, heard and responded to within global value chains. The FFP's model of worker-driven social responsibility presents an alternative to traditional corporate social responsibility. This article identifies the FFP's key components and demonstrates its resilience by identifying the ways in which the issues faced by a new group of migrant workers – recruited through a “guest-worker” scheme – were incorporated and dealt with. This case study highlights the important potential presented by the programme to address labour abuses across transnationalized labour markets while considering early replication possibilities

TalkFutures: Supporting Qualitative Practices in Distributed Community Engagements

Community engagements are qualitative processes that make use of participants local knowledge for democratic decision-making, but often exclude participants from data analysis and dissemination. This can mean that they are left feeling that their voice is not properly represented in the final output. This paper presents a digital community engagement process, TalkFutures, that actively involves participants in the production, distributed analysis and summarization of qualitative data. The design of TalkFutures was explored through a five-week deployment with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as part of a consultation designed to inform future strategy. Our analysis of deployment metrics and post-deployment interviews outline how TalkFutures: (i) increased modes of participation across the qualitative workflow; (ii) reduced barriers to participation; and (iii) improved representation in the engagement processes