Deliberative Dialogue
Deliberative dialogue is a public engagement process developed to allow people to have an authentic, civil productive discussion at public meetings. A well-designed process allows everyone a voice and an opportunity to share perspectives, which allows people to hear each other even if the issues discussed are contentious and there are diverse opinions.
Deliberation allows people to consider the consequences, costs and trade-offs of various options and weigh ideas and opinions heard. Processes are usually led by an independent facilitator who can help frame the issues in a safe, productive and balanced way to help use the information gathered to improve the decision making outcomes.
Example of Deliberative Dialogue:
MOPC was engaged by a town to design and run a civil discourse initiative, with the purpose of facilitating community dialogue and gathering community input on how the town could address the issue of incivility and create a more inclusive community. Although launched in response to the uncivil environment online, the initiative purposely remained broader. To get a better sense of the issues at hand, MOPC conducted a series of interviews and distributed a community-wide survey. The input gathered was used to develop a deliberative dialogue framework for the community to discuss how to create a more inclusive and engaged town.