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Public deliberation

Public deliberation is the process through which citizens together name an issue, weigh different approaches, and decide on various courses of actions

Introduction

For David Mathews “public deliberation is a means by which citizens make tough choices about basic purposes and directions for their communities and their country. It is a way of reasoning and talking together.” Public deliberation, when adopted as a habit in a community, promises to inform and help citizens understand the complexities of issues and appreciate the motivations behind different approaches to address them; to create a public by linking people to one another as they weigh decisions and look for solutions to common problems; and to create a new kind of knowledge that exists, only when people come together. This “public knowledge” as David Mathews calls it, is about how the public sees issue, what is valuable to people, and what people are or aren’t willing to do.

Requirements

In the introduction, we have defined public deliberation as a process through which citizens come together to name an issue, weigh different approaches, and decide on various courses of actions. It implies:

A public space- The public space is “a space of uncoerced human association” where citizens come together to deliberate, inform one another, and take actions for the general interest . It can be a physical setting like in the “market place,” under the tree, as it used to be in traditional communities, in the city hall, in a football field, or wherever people from different groups and classes can meet. It can also be virtual, using new information and communication technologies. Regardless of the format, it must be neutral in the sense that everybody attending feels ownership, and it must be safe for differences, thus enabling individuals to express their different opinions, to inform and learn from another.

A sense of community- Public deliberation is not possible if people cannot identify themselves as part of a community facing the same problems. The sense of community is not as much about a distinct group of people as it is about connections that exist between people in relation to the issues. Communities emerge even within a heterogeneous and multi-ethnic group of people around an issue that relates to the things that people value deeply. Most neighborhoods in urban areas in Cameroon are multi-ethnic, and the people face the same complex problems (crime, pollution, corruption, etc.) regardless of their ethnic group.

Naming and framing issues in public terms- The way a problem is named has tremendous consequences, as it determines who can get involved and the type of answers that may emerge. For citizens to be engaged in an issue, it has to be named in a way that reflects or connects to their interests. In other words, issues must be presented in the way people experience them in their lives. Most of the time in Cameroon, issues are framed in partisan or technical terms. This excludes the public and narrows the avenues of solutions, thus reinforcing the disengagement of the citizens. Allowing people to name and frame issues gives them the opportunity to understand how they can address problems and to see different possibilities for actions. And citizens become more engaged when they realize that they can do something. They become motivated by the sense of possibilities.

Making choices through deliberation- The way an issue is framed creates tensions between and within the approaches to deal with it. Citizens then have to weigh the costs and consequences of various approaches to the problem against what they consider to be the most valuable to them. In this sense, public deliberation is an exploration among people with diverse views of various approaches to a problem or options for action. The main goal is not clear agreement but a sense of direction and purpose within which citizens can take personal or collective actions.

Acting together- As Benjamin Barber puts it, “Yet deliberation without power is fraud, and will soon burn out those compelled to talk without being able to make relevant decisions. Just power without deliberation is despotism, even when it wears the cloak of representative democracy.” In fact, often when citizens are convened in gatherings, the decisions made are never implemented; this contributes to skepticism and frustration. It is important that public deliberation lead to action; people are motivated and engaged when they see the possibilities of action and change. The sense of common direction and purpose coupled with the sense of possibilities that deliberation creates in some cases triggers action. People individually or collectively can start taking some action steps, even if they may disagree with other people. In cases where citizens engage together in action, deliberation leads not only to one action or project, but can actually create a habit of acting together.

References

David Mathews, Making choices together: the power of public deliberation, (Dayton , Ohio: The Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 2001 David Mathews Op Cit Benjamin R. Barber (1999), Deliberation, Democracy and Power, Kettering Review, Fall 1999, P.36

Resources

The kettering Foundation :[ http://www.kettering.org] National Issues Forum : [1]