Resolving Community Conflicts and Problems: Public Deliberation and Sustained Dialogue

✍ Scribed by Roger Lohmann (editor); Jon Van Til (editor)

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 384
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Public deliberation and group discussion can strengthen the foundations of civil society, even when the groups engaged in debate share a history of animosity. Scholars have begun to study the dialogue sustaining these conversations, especially its power to unite and divide groups and individuals. The twenty-four essays in this collection analyze public exchanges and the nature of sustained dialogue within the context of race relations, social justice, ethnic conflicts, public-safety issues, public management, community design, and family therapy. They particularly focus on college campuses and the networks of organizations and actors that have found success there. Open discussion may seem like an idealistic if not foolhardy gesture in such milieus, yet in fact the practice proves crucial to establishing and reinforcing civic harmony.

✦ Table of Contents

CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction: Sustained Dialogue and Public Deliberation: The Role of Public Conversation in a Growing Civil Society and Commons
SECTION 1. BASIC STATEMENTS
Introduction
1. The Structure of Sustained Dialogue and Public Deliberation
2. The Sustained Dialogue Model: Transforming Relationships, Designing Change
3. Sustained Dialogue in Action
4. Sustained Dialogue and Public Deliberation: Making the Connection
5. Let’s Talk: Dialogue and Deliberation in Higher Education
6. Deliberation, Dialogue, and Deliberative Democracy in Social Work Education and Practice
SECTION 2. SUSTAINED DIALOGUE IN PRACTICE
Introduction
7. Diving In: A Handbook for Improving Race Relations on College Campuses Through the Process of Sustained Dialogue
8. Derry Exceptionalism and an Organic Model of Sustained Dialogue
9. The Role of Dialogue in Achieving Social Justice at a Large Public University
10. A Public Safety Process: Sustained Dialogue for Situational Policing
11. Facilitating Neighborhood Growth: A Commonsense Approach to Public Safety from the Relational Paradigm
SECTION 3 PUBLIC DELIBERATION IN PRACTICE
Introduction
12. The Deliberative Posture
13. Public Deliberation and Dialogue in Public Management
14. Deliberation and Dialogue and Commons Theory
15. Question Mapping: A Method for Organizing and Sustaining Dialogue
16. Applying Family Therapy Principles to the Body Politic Through Sustained Dialogue
SECTION 4. BUILDING PRACTICE AND RESEARCH
Introduction
17. Social Entrepreneurship in the Practice of Deliberation and Dialogue
18. The Future of Deliberation and Dialogue Studies
List of Contributors
Appendix: Core Principles for Public Engagement
References
Index