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Vol. 11 No. 1

Public Deliberation: Efforts in Two States to Transform Public Policy Development

Submitted
February 22, 2011
Published
2011-02-22

Abstract

A contemporary vision for a democracy is that it involves
those who wish to be involved; the highest expression of
human rationality becomes reality when ordinary people speak
and reason together on issues of common concern. Public
deliberation is a structured dialogue around a challenging
public problem. It is a means through which citizens can make
tough choices about the basic purpose and direction of their
communities and their country. Oklahoma State University and
the Oklahoma Partnership for Public Deliberation, along with
the University of Missouri, incorporated public deliberation
into their public policy and community development work. To
implement public deliberation, they conducted institutes and
academies to prepare extension professionals and community
leaders to use this practice in their public lives. Research to
determine the impact of public deliberation in these two states
indicates that public deliberation is a useful approach to
addressing challenging social issues.