‘How can we enhance our capacity to talk and think more deeply together about the critical issues facing our communities, our organisations, our nations, and our planet?’ The World Café: Shaping our Futures Through Conversations that Matter, Juanita Brown, 2005 What is the World Café? The World Café method is a discussion group aimed at...Continue reading
Importance of Facilitation
Lyn Carson – Research Director, The newDemocracy Foundation What is the question? How are the usual challenges associated with working with groups addressed in mini-publics? What are the usual answers? In the political landscape, groups are commonly chaired (in committees) or arbitrated by a Speaker (in parliaments). When citizens are brought together in a public space,...Continue reading
MosaicLab
nDF has collaborated with the engagement firm MosaicLab to support the operation of the I deliberated -now what? online group. The group is operated via Facebook and is open to those who have taken part in a deliberative process such as a citizens’ jury which was facilitated by MosaicLab. nDF has encouraged former jurors to participate in...Continue reading
Democracy is broken but we can fix it with real people power: Campbell Newman
I entered politics with an engineer’s mindset — to assess the challenges, then build things to solve those problems. I went into it knowing politics can be bruising, and I was a willing participant in making sure I offered my arguments with the full measure of force and theatre to go along with the underlying...Continue reading
Sample Size for Mini-Publics
Lyn Carson – Research Director, The newDemocracy Foundation What is the question? When convening a mini-public, certain basic parameters must be met: the group should be diverse and inclusive (Landemore, 2012), and it should have time and sufficient information to deliberate well (March & Carson, 2013) (See, Deliberation), and its decisions should be influential. When discussing...
Silvertail subversives: the men aiming to change a system in which they prosper
Meet four men who have prospered hugely under our current political system, yet want to dramatically overhaul it for the greater good. On the cover of Oz magazine’s February 1964 edition three young men – one dressed, incongruously, in a suit – stand at the Tom Bass public sculpture in Sydney’s Hunter Street, pissing into...Continue reading
French Presidential Election and Sortition
Gil Delannoi – Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po University (Paris)Lyn Carson – Research Director, the newDemocracy Foundation Presidential campaign Something rather unusual happened in France during the campaign for president in 2017. Although the world watched with interest as Emmanuel Macron and Martine Le Pen competed in the second round of presidential elections, some fascinating...Continue reading
Systemic Impacts of Mini-publics
Professor Chris Riedy Dr Jenny Kent Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS You can read the full report here. Introduction A mini-public is a democratic innovation that brings together a small, representative group of citizens to deliberate and advise on a decision, or sometimes make a decision. Members of mini- publics are often randomly selected from...Continue reading
Media Release: Giving Geelong the council it wants and deserves
Geelong will have the council structure it wants with the passage of City of Greater Geelong Amendment Bill 2017. The Legislative Council passed the Bill last night, bringing about the new structure for the City of Greater Geelong following the Council’s dismissal in April 2016. In an Australian first, the Geelong Citizen’s Jury process put...Continue reading
“There’s no foreseeable opportunity for this”: Jay declares nuke dump “dead”
Premier Jay Weatherill has officially walked away from one of the major policy hallmarks of his term in Government, pronouncing the nuclear waste dump “dead” and vowing he will not revisit it if he wins another term in office. The position appears a significant rhetorical shift from his stance last November, when he pledged to...Continue reading