Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes


Book Description

The purpose of this document is to help public authorities initiate and develop better representative deliberative processes by establishing a minimum standard for their evaluation. These guidelines provide policy makers and practitioners with an evaluation framework and methodology, as well as evaluation questionnaires.




Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes


Book Description

The OECD report Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave (2020) demonstrated that public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Citizens' Juries, and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems. As the use of such processes increases, so does the need to determine and ultimately improve their quality. The purpose of this document is to help public authorities initiate and develop better representative deliberative processes by establishing a minimum standard for their evaluation. These guidelines provide policy makers and practitioners with an evaluation framework and methodology, as well as evaluation questionnaires.




Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions Catching the Deliberative Wave


Book Description

Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.




OECD Public Governance Reviews OECD Guidelines for Citizen Participation Processes


Book Description

The OECD Guidelines for Citizen Participation Processes are intended for any public official or public institution interested in carrying out a citizen participation process. The guidelines describe ten steps for designing, planning, implementing and evaluating a citizen participation process, and discuss eight different methods for involving citizens: information and data, open meetings, public consultations, open innovation, citizen science, civic monitoring, participatory budgeting and representative deliberative processes. The guidelines are illustrated with examples as well as practical guidance built on evidence gathered by the OECD. Finally, nine guiding principles are presented to help ensure the quality of these processes.




De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens' Assemblies


Book Description

Citizens' Assemblies (CAs) are flourishing around the world. Quite often composed of randomly selected citizens, CAs, arguably, come as a possible answer to contemporary democratic challenges. Democracies worldwide are indeed confronted with a series of disruptive phenomena such as a widespread perception of distrust and growing polarization as well as low performance. Many actors seek to reinvigorate democracy with citizen participation and deliberation. CAs are expected to have the potential to meet this twofold objective. But, despite deliberative and inclusive qualities of CAs, many questions remain open. The increasing popularity of CAs call for a holistic reflection and evaluation on their origins, current uses and future directions. The De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens' Assemblies showcases the state of the art around the study of CAs and opens novel perspectives informed by multidisciplinary research and renewed thinking about deliberative participatory processes. It discusses the latest theoretical, empirical, and methodological scientific developments on CAs and offers a unique resource for scholars, decision-makers, practitioners, and curious citizens to better understand the qualities, purposes, promises but also pitfalls of CAs.




Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making


Book Description

Federal agencies have taken steps to include the public in a wide range of environmental decisions. Although some form of public participation is often required by law, agencies usually have broad discretion about the extent of that involvement. Approaches vary widely, from holding public information-gathering meetings to forming advisory groups to actively including citizens in making and implementing decisions. Proponents of public participation argue that those who must live with the outcome of an environmental decision should have some influence on it. Critics maintain that public participation slows decision making and can lower its quality by including people unfamiliar with the science involved. This book concludes that, when done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively. This book recommends that agencies recognize public participation as valuable to their objectives, not just as a formality required by the law. It details principles and approaches agencies can use to successfully involve the public.




OECD Public Governance Reviews Global Trends in Government Innovation 2023


Book Description

In the face of what has increasingly been referred to as an ongoing “permacrisis”, governments must cope with and respond to emerging threats while already grappling with longstanding issues such as climate change, digital disruption and low levels of trust. In this context, understanding new approaches and spreading successful ideas has never been more important.




OECD Public Governance Reviews Promoting Deliberative Democracy in the Basque Country in Spain Lessons from the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly


Book Description

This report takes stock of the project carried out by the OECD, Arantzazulab, and public authorities in the town of Tolosa and the province of Gipuzkoa (Spain) to experiment with the use of public deliberation. It explores ways to improving deliberative processes in the Basque region, including looking at the link between those who participate in deliberative processes and the broader public, the role of civil servants in ensuring ownership of deliberative processes, the governance structure, or making evaluation and follow-up more systematic. The report also sets out three pathways to promoting and systemising deliberation across all levels of government in the Basque Country: 1) institutionalising deliberative practices; 2) embedding deliberation in public administration; and 3) mainstreaming deliberation both within and outside government.




Citizen engagement in evidence-informed policy-making


Book Description

This guide focuses on a specific form of citizen engagement, namely mini-publics, and their potential to be adapted to a variety of contexts. Mini-publics are forums that include a cross-section of the population selected through civic lottery to participate in evidenceinformed deliberation to inform policy and action. The term refers to a diverse set of democratic innovations to engage citizens in policy-making. This guide provides an overview of how to organize mini-publics in the health sector. It is a practical companion to the 2022 Overview report, Implementing citizen engagement within evidence-informed policy-making. Both documents examine and encourage contributions that citizens can make to advance WHO’s mission to achieve universal health coverage. Anyone interested in, or planning to organize citizen engagement in evidence-informed policy-making can use this guide to find relevant information on how to conduct a minipublic. The guide also offers a structured learning process for organizers, commissioners and facilitators who use the guide to develop an actual citizen engagement project. The structure of the guide allows for flexibility and context-specific circumstances that affect the organizing of a mini-public.




Translations of Responsibility


Book Description

In 2020, a group of European researchers got a European Union (EU) grant to do a project called TRANSFORM. The objective of TRANSFORM was to integrate the principle of responsible research and innovation (RRI) into the research and innovation policies of three European regions: Lombardy, Brussels, and Catalonia. This book tells the story of how TRANSFORM translated RRI into practice, all the way from philosophy of technology to EU policy jargon, to the project contract, and finally into the real-life events in these regions. Responsibility was translated in creative ways, with surprising goals and ambiguous outcomes. Armed with these stories, the book analyses the broader context of the desire for better governance of technoscience and draws two lessons: Firstly, that there is more governance than one may see at first sight, and secondly, that there is a need to rethink the borders of technoscience and the spaces in which it resides. The book proposes to think of governance in technoscience, rather than governance of technoscience.