Notable Publications
Here you can find some of the latest publications, reports, blogs, books and articles that are relevant to our work. If you have something we should post, email us.
David Mathews on Higher Education and Democracy
David Mathews, President of the Kettering Foundation, has written a couple chapters in some new books. In the Afterword to Deliberation and the Work of Higher Education, Mathews raises the important question, beyond the authors and immediate readers of recent books focusing on higher education and democracy, "who else cares?" In the Afterword to A Different Kind of Politics, Mathews writes about two civic engagement movements – one on campus and one off campus and wo
New Books from Kettering Foundation
The Kettering Foundation has produced several terrific publications on higher education’s role in American democracy in the past two years. They include:
- A Different Kind of Politics: Readings on the Role of Higher Education in Democracy. (2009). Edited by Derek Barker and David Brown.
- Deliberation and the Work of Higher Education: Innovations for the Classroom, the Campus, and the Community. (2008). Edited by John Dedrick, Laura Grattan, and Harris Dienstfrey.
- Agent of Democracy: Higher Education and the HEX Journey (2008). Edited by David Brown and Deborah Witte.
- Speaking of Politics: Preparing College Students for Democratic Citizenship through Deliberative Dialogue. (2007). Written by Katy Harriger and Jill McMillan.
New Book: Democratic Professionalism
Democratic Professionalism: Citizen Participation and the Reconstruction of Professional Ethics, Identity, and Practice. In Choice magazine's positive review of Dzur's book, they write, "Professionals have long been under attack for disabling the civic capacity of their clients. Dzur (Bowling Green State Univ.) theorizes a new kind of professional who will invite and facilitate civic engagement by ordinary citizens within domains controlled by expert knowledge. Reviewing the sociological theory of professionalism, Dzur notes that doctors, engineers, accountants, lawyers, journalists, and other policy experts maintain work autonomy and a degree of self-regulation precisely because they claim a commitment to larger social purposes. How, he asks, might these purposes be reframed to foster institutions of cooperation and a culture of citizen deliberation at the level of "middle democracy"? In carefully argued chapters on public journalism, restorative justice, and bioethics, Dzur outlines concrete steps some experts have taken, and others might take, to break down the barriers--both structural and normative--their professions have erected to individual and community-based civic engagement."
The American Prospect Special Report on Democracy
The American Prospect Special Report on Democracy; the January/February 2009 special report focuses on the new generation of democracy reformers. The articles examine election reform, system-wide changes and deliberative democracy. Stuart Comstock-Gay and Joe Goldman co-authored an article that has a strong argument for deliberative democracy at the national level. Access all the articles here.
Strengthening Democracy Report
In July, three leading democracy-building organizations - Everyday Democracy, Demos, and AmericaSpeaks - convened civic leaders and researchers to map out an agenda for strengthening American democracy. They identified three reform objectives: electoral reform, community development and building, and advancing deliberative democracy.
Before the election, the same group released a set of recommendations in a new report, An Agenda for Strengthening Our Nation's Democracy that sent to both the Obama and McCain campaigns. These recommendations call upon the next administration to:
- Establish a White House Office on Civic Engagement that works to increase collaboration among federal agencies and trains staff about the values and methods of public participation and collaborative government.
- Convene national discussions to provide citizens with a voice in the policy-making process.
- Adopt policy reforms for increasing local participation in public life and eliminate obstacles to public engagement.
You can read the full report and sign on as an endorser here.
TDI Featured in Peer Review and Discussion Guide Available
The latest issue of Peer Review (quarterly magazine published by AAC&U) focuses on student political engagement. TDI members authored some of the articles, including one by our Director, Nancy Thomas.
The Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Peer Review examines how the academy engages students in their learning today to help them grow as engaged citizens for tomorrow. It focuses on democratic civic engagement rather than service and in what some call civic agency. The editors of Peer Review were kind enough to allow us to share three of the feature articles which you can download here.
Several TDI members wrote articles for the issue and we encourage you to make use of the discussion guide we created to accompany this issue.
U.K. Government Report on People Power
Communities in Control, Real People, Real Power is the report of a U.K. government agency charged with identifying means of pushing power down to the community level. Download the report here.
Shared Governance Lit Review
The Center for Collaborative Policy at Sacramento State University recently released a literature review of shared governance in higher education. Written by William Leach, Director of the Center for Collaborative Policy, released Shared Governance in Higher Education: Structural and Cultural Responses to a Changing National Climate. The Center also conducted an assessment report for Sacramento State University on its own governance, which you can read here.
Democratic Theory & Practice Database
The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at Kansas State University developed a Refworks database for sharing citations to literature on the study and practice of democracy. A Refworks database has been established for sharing citations to literature on the study and practice of democracy. Over 20,000 references have been collected. To visit the database, click here.
New Book Explores Democracy and Freedom
In Deliberative Freedom, Christian F. Rostbøll takes the first sustained look at the relationship between deliberative democratic theory and the topic of freedom. Rostbøll argues that deliberative democracy is normatively committed to multiple dimensions of freedom, and that this, in turn, makes it a distinct model of democracy.
Christian F. Rostbøll is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. In Deliberative Freedom, Rostbøll accepts the common belief that democracy and freedom are intimately related, but he sees this relationship in a new and challenging way. Rostbøll argues that deliberative democracy is normatively committed to multiple dimensions of freedom, and that this, in turn, makes it a distinct model of democracy. He presents a new version of deliberative democracy that rejects the prevailing synthesis of Habermasian critical theory and Rawlsian political liberalism, and contends that this synthesis obscures and neglects important concerns in terms of freedom and emancipation. In addition, Rostbøll explores how the many dimensions of freedom supply a new and fruitful way to address issues such as paternalism, elitism, rationalism, and neutrality.
Noelle McAfee's New Book
TDI Member and George Mason University Professor Noelle McAfee's new book, Democracy and the Political Unconscious is rich in theoretical insights, but it is also grounded in the practical problems of those who are trying to create more decent and democratic societies.
Noelle McAfee is a visiting associate professor of philosophy at George Mason University and the associate editor of the Kettering Review. Noelle McAfee proposes a powerful new political theory for our post-9/11 world, in which an old pathology-the repetition compulsion-has manifested itself in a seemingly endless war on terror. McAfee argues that the quintessentially human desire to participate in a world with others is the key to understanding the public sphere and to creating a more democratic society, a world that all members can have a hand in shaping. Then she explores the potential of deliberative dialogue and other "talking cures" and public testimonies, such as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to help societies work through, rather than continually act out, their conflicts.
Civic Engagement at the Center
Informed by the work of the Bonner Foundation, Civic Engagement at the Center highlights developmental models for students’ civic learning and socially responsible leadership implemented at 77 campuses. The monograph describes key elements of the co-curricular model, research on its impact on students, and emerging civic engagement minors created to complement decades of work in student affairs. To learn more and to order a copy of the monograph, click here.
New Kettering Foundation Book
Deliberation & the Work of Higher Education, describes how deliberative dialogue – in both the classroom and on campus – can promote learning and problem solving.
The book, edited by John Dedrick, Laura Grattan, and Harris Dienstfrey, describes in candid and practical terms the ways that learning and practicing the skills of deliberation both inside and beyond the classroom can be used to support students' development as responsible citizens. The book brings together 11 primarily narrative accounts of experiments in deliberation written by faculty and administrators from a variety of U.S. colleges and universities.
New Book: Political Communication and Deliberation
Professor John Gastil, University of Washington, has written a new book, Political Communication and Deliberation. This text takes a unique approach to the field of political communication by viewing key concepts and research through the lens of deliberative democratic theory.
This is the first text to argue that communication is central to democratic self-governance primarily because of its potential to facilitate public deliberation. Thus, it offers political communication instructors a new perspective on familiar topics, and it provides those teaching courses on political deliberation with their first central textbook." Prof. Gastil also developed a companion instructor site, http://depts.washington.edu/idelib/.
A Primer on Public Engagement
Public Agenda just released a Primer in Public Engagement that explains how public engagement helps create civic capacity for public problem solving, offers 10 core principles of effective public engagement and enlists a few examples of key practices and strategies.
The Primer also describes the power of "Citizen Choicework," a critical element in many deliberative processes. Some other essentials covered in the Primer:
- Authentic public engagement vs. business as usual
- Capacity-building vs. event-oriented approaches to engagement
- Responding thoughtfully and conscientiously to the public's involvement
- Building long-term capacity
- Strengths and weaknesses of various engagement approaches and strategies.
The PDF is available for free download at: http://publicagenda.org/pubengage/pdfs/public_engagement_primer.pdf
The Role of Public Reasoning
Should "public reasoning" be viewed as a core student learning outcome, equal to learning goals of critical thinking and moral reasoning? Read about the role of public reasoning in a recent issue of the Journal of College and Character (PDF).
Where is Democracy Headed?
Where is Democracy Headed? a new report by Peter Levine and Lars Hasselblad Torres, reviews the Deliberative Democracy Consortium's work to bridge the divide between researchers and practitioners and summarizes the main lessons that have been learned through five years of joint research between academics and non-academics. Commissioned by the Kettering Foundation, the report describes 20 major findings that emerged from the research.
