Penn Project for Civic Engagement: Core Concepts

The goal of The Penn Project For Civic Engagement is to deepen citizen engagement in public life and politics by creating opportunities for the public to identify and work through important issues. Our projects are a marriage of civic values and expert knowledge, to generate momentum for public-driven solutions.

Moving from talk to action is an enduring challenge of public deliberation. One of the process contributions of our work together has been our focus on the products of civic engagement, that public deliberation should have tangible output to guide the work of citizens and of policy makers. At times the desired action is the development or modification of public policy. At other times, the desired action is, to use Harry Boyte's phrase, "public work."

The concepts below, and others that evolve as we engage with the public, inform our work and its evolution.

Metaphors of Community

Metaphors of Engagement

Key Factors for Engaging People

The 3 D's

The 3 C's

Naming and Framing Problems

Civic Deliberation and Civic Capacity

Metaphors of Community

Community as...

political:
- relationship between representatives and constituents.
economic:
- transaction relationship between business/professional and customer/client
social:
- interaction relationship between friends and neighbors

Metaphors of Engagement

Rules of Engagement:

Think of the military or (American) football.
Actors' behavior is governed by rules to maximize control in the situation:
- Limit the control, trouble, harm, mischief, or damage, the other can inflict on you
- Increase the amount of control you have over the other
Put another way, the goal is to get your way with as little cost to you as possible.

Gears Engaging:

Model here is a car or machine.
So long as the parts of the machine (organization?) are aligned, the gears come together smoothly and things work well. Work gets accomplished.
But if things are out of line, if people don't play their part as prescribed, or if the environment changes (or doesn't react as anticipated), then things don't work effectively.

Engaged to be Married

The relationship is reciprocal.
Each person in the relationship contributes to the other, and to achieving the goals/work of the relationship.
To the extent that they engage in the sense of "rules of engagement" or "gears," reciprocity wanes and the relationship suffers.

KEY FACTORS FOR ENGAGING PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LIFE

FACTORS	WHAT WE OFTEN SEE IN SOCIETY	WHAT CITIZENS DO
Connections	Fragmented issues or concerns.	Make connections between concerns, rather than isolate one concern from another.
Personal Context	Appeals made to people's self interest	Draw on their life experiences and imagination to establish ties to public concerns. Can hold self-interests and still see common interests.
Coherence	Concerns depicted through fragmented facts, data, anecdotes.	Want to know the "whys" and "hows," the history and all sides of a concern or topic.
Room for Ambivalence	Public debate cast in extremes, conflict and polarized.	Need room for ambivalence - to ask questions, listen and learn, test ideas and make connections.
Emotion	"Rational' discourse that is stripped of emotion.	Use emotion as a vital part of forming relationships with public concerns and topics. Meaning is stripped out when emotion is not part of public discourse.
Authenticity	Expert-driven facts and figures used to establish and speak with authority.	Look for people, issues and institutions that reflect a sense of reality and use language they understand.
Sense of Possibility	Public concerns riddled with inaction, stagnation, lack of hope.	Want a belief or feeling that progress is possible on a public concern and that they can play a meaningful role in bringing about such progress.
Catalysts	Experts seen as the "credible sources" for information and for engaging citizens.	Are spurred to think about, discuss and act on public concerns by individuals in their daily lives - neighbors, family members, friends.
Mediating Institutions	Appeals that treat people as if they were passive consumers of information, isolated in their homes.	Come together to discuss, learn about and act on concerns in a variety of places: schools, churches, neighborhood councils.

Adapted from Meaningful Chaos: How People Form Relationships with Public Concerns, prepared by The Harwood Group of Bethesda, MD, for the Kettering Foundation, Dayton, OH, 1993.

Debate, Discussion, Deliberative Dialogue

Deliberation is a particular kind of talk. It is the kind of talking that people do when they realize that they are responsible for making decisions and choices-or giving guidance to others who will make those decisions-that will not only affect them but will affect others and will also have costs and consequences along with the good things that may happen. Deliberation is hard work. People work at looking at the pros and cons of each approach, or perspective. That means making a real effort to find out how other people see the issue and, more importantly, why they see it the way they do. In deliberation, this means listening to the people you don't agree with as carefully as to the people you do agree with.

It is, of course, possible to have a great discussion about issues and problems; sharing opinions, personal experiences, and favorite solutions. And that's a fine, and often satisfying, thing to do. Or it is possible to debate an issue; presenting evidence supporting your chosen view, countering and undercutting the arguments that others present for their chosen views, persuading, and trying to win by presenting the best and most eloquent argument. But with deliberation, talk goes beyond just discussion or debate to trying to understand the problem together and to finding solutions that will be best for everyone. Deliberation happens when a group of people work on a problem as if solving it is up to them and no one else, and when they recognize that they and others will be living with the consequences, both good and bad, of the choices they make.

Debate

Winners and losers
Search for glaring differences
Search for weaknesses in others' positions
Counter another's position at the expense of the relationship
Invest wholeheartedly in your beliefs
Listen to find flaws and counterarguments
Is oppositional and seeks to prove the other wrong
The goal is winning
Defends assumptions as truth

Most useful when: A position or course of action is being advocated and winning is the goal.

Discussion

Back and forth exchange of information, stories, experiences, viewpoints...
May focus on a topic, theme, idea, problems, issues, etc., may be broad or focused
A generic term meaning talking together
Focuses on the experience of talking without any particular goal or desired outcomes
May be between two people or among many
May mean many kinds of talking together (such as a deliberative discussion, informative discussion, debate, dialogue, etc.)
Usually implies participants are not adversarial or competing as in debate

Most useful when: People want to talk together about something without desiring any particular outcome from the conversation.

Deliberative Dialogue

Goal is shared understanding of the issue/problem
Examining costs and consequences of even most favored approaches
Assumes that many people have pieces of an answer and a workable solution
Listening to understand and find meaning
Presents assumptions for re-evaluation
Opens possibilities for new solutions
Leads to mutual understanding of differences and ways to act even with those differences
People explore what's important to them and others by asking questions

Most useful when: A decision or criteria for a decision, about the best way(s) to approach an issue or problem is needed.

Compromise, Consensus and Common Ground for Action

Compromise, consensus and common ground each have a role to play in our decision making activities. Compromise is most often associated with adversverdana bargaining with a predetermined outcome (e.g., contact negotiations) while consensus is more frequently seen in ongoing working groups or teams where a decision with unanimous or near-unanimous agreement is important (e.g., the League of Women Voters has developed consensual decision making as an ongoing activity). Common ground, or common ground for action, however, is an essential foundation for public action, which is action that unites diverse positions into a common direction, even if they don't agree on specifics.

The strength of compromise lies in its ability to create agreements between polarized parties, particularly when an agreement must be constructed within a short period of time and when people can be held to that agreement by legal forces. Consensus, on the other hand, is most powerful with people who have a history of working together, or who are in an organization (e.g., League of Women Voters) with such a history. Consensus works best if there is time for people to work out differences of opinion and to convince each other of the correctness of one position or action. Common ground (or common ground for action), however, draws it strength from the relationships among diverse actors (or groups) that emerge as people work through differences and come to understand each other, and each other's values. We seek common ground for action when working through how to act together to address a shared problem involving fundamental values- e.g., when we must decide how to improve education or make our communities more livable.

COMPROMISE

goal is mutual concessions
both sides agree they got the best deal they could
start and end with what's best for me (or mine)... based on self-interest
leads to individual, self-interested action
leads to hardening of positions and continued opposition
is constructed - create agreements by mutual concessions
success = when each person is satisfied with costs and benefits

CONSENSUS

goal is mutual agreement
agree on actions even if not on values (on what to do, not on what's important)
end with solidarity or conformity
leads to unified/single homogeneous action
leads to group think which can discourage dissent
is artificial - create solidarity in whatever way possible
success = there is general agreement on what to do

COMMON GROUND FOR ACTION

goal is mutual understanding
agree on underlying values (or overlapping interests) even if disagree on which actions get us there
end with stronger connections/community
may lead to public action
leads to mutual understanding of differences and how we can act even with those differences
is organic - mutual understanding is uncovered or emerges as people explore what's important to them
success = there is mutual understanding which creates possibilities for complementary action

Naming and Framing Problems

Metaphors of Framing:

To arrange, distort, ignore or invent facts so as to achieve a desired result, which often involves blaming someone for a problem. a.k.a. politics as usual, spin

To zero in on certain parts of a scene, while relegating others to the background or "outside the frame," in a bid to discern meaning. a.k.a. daily journalism

To provide basic structure for a house with multiple rooms, multiple vistas and plenty of space for multiple visitors.a.k.a. deliberative democracy

Pitfalls of Naming and Framing:

Naming it in terms of your preferred solution:
- The problem is the public schools need more money from the state.
- This shuts out other voices who don't agree your solution is all that's needed; it shuts you off from considering other possible solutions.
Naming it in a way that makes it seem so huge that it's hopeless.
- The problem is you can't fix the schools until you eliminate urban poverty and violence.
- This absolves you from your share of responsibility to do what you could to help solve the problem; it induces paralysis.
Naming it in terms of whom you blame for it.
- The problem is the teachers are lazy and greedy. OR The problem is these kids just don't want to learn
- This invites finger pointing, not solutions, and shuts out stakeholders who should be part of the solution.
Naming it based on erroneous or untested assumptions.
- The problem is no matter how much money we spend, test scores never go up.OR The problem is the people of this city would never accept a state takeover.
- This is just another way of defining the problem so as to absolve you from doing your part. It also induces paralysis.

Characteristics of Well-Framed Problems

Clarifies multiple sources of the problem
Points to multiple potential outcomes
Allows for multiple approaches to solutions
Makes sense to people with different perspectives
Identifies the kinds of information that might be helpful in developing solutions

Civic Deliberation and Civic Capacity

Civic Capacity:

A community's ability to act collectively and take public responsibility for solving shared problems
- Ability of different sectors of a community to "concert"
- Power to get things done (with not over others)

Guiding Principles to Building Civic Capacity:

Transparency
Collaboration
Inclusiveness
Mobilization

For more information, contact:
Dr. Harris Sokoloff, Executive Director
Center for School Study Councils
University of Pennsylvania
215-898-7371