Blogs

Lisa Strahley of  SUNY Broome recently shared a video her college and a local middle school produced based on their experience using NIF's Historic Decisions curricula in their classroom. Historic Decisions issue guides take important decisions from American history and frame them, not as stories of great men making decisions for the country, but in terms of the difficult choices citizens at the time were confronting.

As attention to public deliberation has increased, one core interest of researchers has been evaluating the impact of deliberative processes. Researchers, practitioners, elected officials, and participants themselves want to know if what they’re doing matters. Does public deliberation impact policy? Does it change our attitude toward issues? Does it adhere to democratic ideals?

The 2014 mid-term elections in the United States are complete, and the two major political parties are evaluating what the results mean for them politically. Both Republicans and Democrats appear to have adopted a stance that might best be described as: “I will say I will work with the other side, but only if they do what I want them to do.” This is, of course, a prescription for something other than “working together,” and it is likely to leave much of substance languishing.