These are the questions and agenda laid out by the Kettering Foundation at our meeting with them on March 27-28.

Memorandum

To: Participants in Presidential Libraries and A Public Voice Meeting
Kettering Foundation, March 27-28, 2007

From: Phil Stewart

Date: March 26, 2007

Re: Developing a Framework for Follow-on Sessions at the Presidential Libraries.

Context: A Public Voice brings together policymakers and policy elites on a panel to react to and discuss the implications for their own work of scenes from publics grappling with a significant national issue, this year, energy. As the publics deliberate, they identify why the issue is important to them, what things highly valued by them they see at stake in the issue, why they cannot get everything they want regarding the issue, and so, in the end, struggle with what trade-offs among things highly valued they may be willing to make, and thus, what kind of permissions for action they would open up for policymakers.

In addition to demonstrating these qualities of public deliberation through A Public Voice, Kettering’s research interest lies largely in seeking to understand the conditions under which policymakers and policy elites come to recognize the contributions that a deliberative public can make to their own work. In conducting this research with policymakers, we bear in mind five underlying questions, greater understanding of which may help us understand better how a deliberative public can more effectively relate to its elected representatives, and how our representative institutions may become more responsive to a thoughtful, deliberative public.

These core questions are:
(1) Do you perceive the deliberative public as capable of thinking through complex issues in a coherent manner?
(2) Can you resonate with the struggles of a deliberative public to identify acceptable trade-offs among things held equally valuable?
(3) How does what you see in the process and outcomes of public deliberation relate to (or what import does it have for) the work you do as a professional (in the Senate, a newspaper, a research org.? What are its implications for (a) political (institutional) decision making and (b) community problem solving? (4) If you see important implications for your work, does this have implications for how you want to relate to your publics in the future? And,
(5) What do you think, then, about democracy—i.e. the “of, for, and by” the people?

Implications for Presidential Libraries – Public Voice participant discussions:

Drawing on the above, but now focusing on the questions one might pose to citizens for discussion following their viewing of the Public Voice taping, I would suggest the following illustrative kinds:

1. Questions about the taped segments of citizens deliberating about the energy issue:

a) Do you think that the public in the tapes in their deliberations showed recognition of the complexity of the issue and dealt with it in a coherent manner?

b) Which aspects of the energy issue seemed most important to the deliberative citizens on the tapes?


c) Can you identify some of the highly valued things citizens saw as engaged by the energy issue as they deliberated?

d) What kinds of trade-offs did the deliberating citizens appear ready, and not ready, to accept to address the energy issue?


e) Did areas of public permission for political action emerge from the taped segments of public deliberation?

2. Questions about Policymaker and Elite perceptions of public deliberation on the energy issue:

a) Do you think that some of the Panelists recognized the public in the tapes as dealing with the energy issue in its complexity, and doing so in a more or less coherent manner? If so, what seemed to be the cues or clues that led some panelists to this conclusion?

b) Do the panelists appear to resonate with the way the deliberative public talks about this issue? In the panelists’ discussions, do they tend to use language similar to the publics’, or is their language more technical, more political?

c) Do you think that some of the Panelists recognized the public in the tapes as identifying and struggling with trade-offs? If so, can you identify what it was that led them to recognize this struggle? Did panelists appear to resonate with the kinds of trade-offs

d) Did any of the Panelists appear to see any implications for their own work or thinking in what they observed of public deliberation? If so, what implications did they note? Did they sense areas of permission for action?

e) Did the panelists recognize any implications for our democracy in the kind of deliberative work they saw citizens doing in the tapes?

f) Does what you have observed in this program have any implications for how you, the public, go about your own public life, including public deliberation in your own communities and how you might relate to your elected representatives and t