An excellent collection of case studies of public deliberation in the aim of influencing government...

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	• The Deliberative Democracy Handbook: Strategies for Effective Civic Engagement in the Twenty-First Century Jossey-Bass, 2005 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Exactly what it promises, in an engaging style.

I read this book on assignment, and was surprised at how enjoyable it was. Gastil and Levine pull together experiences from across the country, all through the 20th Century, distilling them into clear lessons and practical advice. And they write well! While it could have been a dry tome of lists and statistics, instead they bring it alive with insight and lively writing.

The review below calling it a 'puff piece' implies an expectation of step-by-step instructions; totally off base. The sub-title is spot on: Strategies for Effective Civic Engagement. I read this book to learn how -and how not- to create and participate in civic debate and education (it's a much bigger field than I realized), which is exactly what I learned. And, while they don't give you a numbered checklist, there ARE enough details and caveats to effectively structure your own town hall meeting. (That reviewer should read the last chapter again.)

What Gastil and Levine do, the importance of which becomes increasingly apparent as one reads the book, is provide a general framework for creating, understanding, and evaluating various forms of deliberation WITHOUT boxing the reader into a one-size-fits-all structure. We're in the middle of exciting (ahem...) political times, and the value of this handbook exists in both the clarity and timing of the authors.

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An excellent collection of case studies of public deliberation in the aim of influencing government decision-making.

John Gastil and Peter Levine have done important service for the academics and practitioners in the field of public participation in government decision-making. This 300 page text book provides 19 chapters of research into diverse contemporary demonstrations of deliberative democracy mostly within the U.S.A. but also some in-depth reviews of important European, Australian and Brazilian systems. An excellent variety of models are discussed including all levels of government decision-making from city planing to national policies. The research is presented by diverse authors with first hand experience. The writing is a good balance of academic rigour and perspective as well as practitioner friendly explanations and observations.

The only problem with this text is the use of "handbook" in the title. While the clearly written case studies are insightful for practitioners and the various practical suggestions found through out the book could help inform a processes plan, they do not constitute the definition of handbook, which is supposed to be an easily referenced manual of instructions. For a real handbook in deliberative democracy try "The Community Planning Handbook: How People Can Shape Their Cities, Towns and Villages in Any Part of the World" by Nick Wates which is clearly written and structured to guide people in the practical implementation of community deliberation to direct local decision-making. You may also be interested in handbooks for specific participatory democracy systems such as the classic "Preferred Futuring", the popular "Open Space Technology", the proven "Consensus Conference" or the new and ultra-simple "Advanced Dotmocracy".

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This book was great!

I just finished "The Deliberative Democracy Handbook" and recommend it as a welcome addition to interdisciplinary studies of researchers, policy-makers,students, and practitioners. In explaining the course of national deliberation and its history, Gastil and Levine present a well-argued history of civic engagement that includes transnational, grass-roots, and bureaucratic dialogues. Noting that the resurgence of deliberation in the 1990's might be short-lived, the authors present case studies of what has and hasn't worked,
such as deliberative polls, on-line dialogues, and town meetings. Perhaps most useful is the handbook's application to other types of discourse; for instance,an analysis of how NGOs may benefit civic culture is relevant to efforts in
international relief and development, particularly if you want to use the Participatory Rural Appraisal or similar methods
of measuring realities. I think the authors shine a much-needed spotlight on the promise of public deliberation in encouraging and restoring multiple citizen voices.

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The Deliberative Democracy Handbook is a terrific resource for democratic practitioners and theorists alike. It combines rich case material from many cities and types of institutional settings with careful reflection on core principles. It generates hope for a renewed democracy, tempered with critical scholarship and political realism. Most important, this handbook opens a spacious window on the innovativeness of citizens in the U.S. (and around the world) and shows how the varied practices of deliberative democracy are part of a larger civic renewal movement.

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