Democracy, peace, dialogue & deliberation
Exploring ways to discuss, debate, dialogue, deliberate, and generally understand and engage with different perspectives
Democracy, peace, dialogue & deliberation
The work of political theorist Bernardo Zacka illuminates the importance of “in-between spaces.” Zacka’s focus is on physical spaces, such as balconies on apartment buildings that overlook the street, and how they can enable what Zacka calls a “reserved sociability” that strengthens pluralism in democratic societies. (12) When the driver of a car... See more
Alex Pentland • Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Participation — Digitalist Papers
“In between spaces” with “reserved sociability”
To me, the real promise of democracy and the promise of politics is this question of, “How do we build a world in which people don't feel like they're pawns in a game that other people are controlling?” Ultimately, that’s what organizing is about.
Hahrie Han
Fuller blames this thinning on two factors. First, extreme partnership has led to “an intense focus” on specific political outcomes, rather than developing better democratic processes. Second, large private foundations and governments are putting money into their own agendas, rather than tools to empower everyday citizens.
In Online Democracy, Fun Is Imperative
Just a moment...
demos.co.uk
Waves: Tech-Powered Democracy - “Waves is a new digital deliberation process and tool that uses AI to enable participation both at scale and in depth. Waves integrates existing digital tools – Remesh and PSI – with new open-source technology, developed by CASM Technology, to simplify and scale end-to-end deliberation for local governments.”
There is evidence that participatory exercises tied to formal decision making processes - from participatory budgeting (C. Johnson, Carlson, and Reynolds 2021) to deliberative polling (Fishkin et al. 2024; “Collective Intelligence Case Studies,” n.d.) - lead to increased democratic engagement and satisfaction. This has the effect of bolstering... See more
Position Paper on Deliberative Tech_Apr 3 Convening
To be stable and effective, both democracy and democratic publics require people to be socially embedded in ongoing relationships rather than temporary mini-publics. Such relationships may be less efficient in the short term, so that some optimal policies remain out of reach, but they are better over time at generating political compromises that... See more
Henry Farrell • AI and Democratic Publics
THE ANTI-DEBATE
anti-debate.org
Azzin’s answer is simple: “Show them how much we are going to lose if we don’t work together.”