Open Government Dialogue
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Research and share best practices for targeted outreach to involve more than the usual suspects in public decision making
As Marcella has pointed out in an earlier post, one of the biggest and most important challenges facing anyone seeking to create a meaningful public engagement process is how to include more than "the usual suspects" in public decision making. Typically underrepresented groups of people in public decision making and planning include immigrants, renters, young families, teens, people with low or no income, disabled or differently-abled people, people with limited English language skills, etc. It takes significant forethought and investment of time and resources to effectively involve these underrepresented demographics in a truly inclusive process that brings all voices affected by a decision or plan to the table.

There is a need for research to identify and share the best practices in the outreach and implementation stages of public engagement. Specifically, what are the best practices for reaching out to and including specific underrepresented groups of people? I have conducted research on best practices for including immigrants and Latino Americans in public meetings, and I encourage others to fund, conduct, and share similar research projects in order that we as a nation might build our capacity for a more democratic and participatory system that represents everyone's voice.

While I am very impressed and thankful that the Obama administration is making this effort to explore new opportunities for deliberative public engagement, I am concerned that there seems to be such a heavy emphasis on online interaction and input. While this technology can certainly be a great way to get lots of people in communication, it tends to leave out many of the underrepresented groups of people I listed above. We need a variety of different models and opportunities for public engagement to remove as many barriers as possible to broad participation for all of us affected by important government decisions.

You can read about strategies for including immigrants in civic engagement efforts in "A Local Official's Guide to Immigrant Civic Engagement," available for free download from the Institute for Local Government at www.ca-ilg.org/cgi

I also worked on a research project for the nonprofit AmericaSpeaks on best strategies for including Latino Americans in deliberative democracy. The findings are published in the Winter 2008 issue of the National Civic Review, please email me at gregkeidan@gmail.com for a copy.

Why Is This Idea Important?

If a public engagement effort doesn't include all voices affected by the decision or plan, 1) People who were left out may rise up to oppose implementation of the plan or decision that is made. 2) Smart elected leaders will discount the results of this expensive public engagement process because they will realize it does not represent the will of all of their constituents. 3) Typically underrepresented groups of people will continue to be under-served by government, as elected officials will continue to be out of touch with the needs, desires, and potential contributions of these parts of the population.
Comments
Becky 8 months ago
I agree with most of this posting. The comment about leaving the the underrepresented groups out of the process is discerning to me. I know when I vote or comment on a particular issue, it is because it is an item I am passionate about, but I also try to keep in mind those individuals whose voices are not as strong as maybe yours or mine.
bidwell2 8 months ago
Overall, we need to think about participation and what goals we are hoping to serve with each program/project.
Linda Blong 8 months ago
I appreciate the emphasis here on the importance of doing the hard work of effective outreach and learning from those who have experience with effective engagement of diverse and traditionally underrepresented people.
Tim Bonnemann 8 months ago
Possibly related: "Create an Open Government project directory and knowledge base" (http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3420-4049)
Debra Bryant 8 months ago
Want to see the surplus money the US government and all states, local governments have? http://CAFR1.com and http://TaxRetirement.com
and support Campaign for Liberty
Democracy Versus Republic

These succinct definitions of what is Democracy and what is a Republic was produced by the US Army in 1928, These definitions have been quietly withdrawn since, soon after.

Democracy:
A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is comunistic-negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate. whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.
A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: " A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."
A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.

Republic:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.
Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.
Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.
A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.
Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.
A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:
an executive and
a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create
a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize
certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."
A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise.
Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:
Democracy:
a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences

Republic
a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.
b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.

Democracy and Republic are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. Whilst in both cases the government is elected by the people, in Democracy the majority rules according to their whims, whilst in the Republic the Government rule according to law. This law is framed in the Constitution to limit the power of Government and ensuring some rights and protection to Minorities and individuals.

The difference between Republic and Righteous Republic is that in the Republic the Government rules according to the law set up by men, in the Righteous Republic the law is the Law of God. Only in the Righteous Republic it can truly be said "One nation under God" for it is governed under commandments of the only One True God and there is no pluralism of religions.
Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered.
Mobocracy: 1. Political control by a mob. 2. The mass of common people as the source of political control.
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