Strategies for Enhancing Public Engagement

Democratic decision-making, as we know it in the United States, is still under development. Over the past forty years, we have expanded the role of civil society by moving beyond the minimum constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to lobby and seek redress. Now, government (at every level) invites not just experts but stakeholders of all kinds to participate in advisory groups and collaborative decision-making. We now expect multiple opportunities for deliberation, including policy dialogues, joint fact-finding, community visioning, consensus building, and mediated decision-making. These new civic engagement strategies need to be examined carefully through close reflection, comparative analysis, and purposeful experimentation. PDP is involved in just such evaluative efforts in a number of policy arenas.

At the local level, in conjunction with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, we have examined new techniques of resolving land use disputes. At the state level, with support from the Rappaport Institute at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, we have examined facility siting, housing and growth management strategies. At the national level, we have been involved in national consensus building efforts on energy policy and water policy as well as decisions about how best to respond to the impacts of climate change. At the international level, we have helped to resolve water, energy, and land use disputes in various parts of the world.