Deliberation’s Contribution to Community Capacity Building

Abstract

This chapter examines deliberation's relationship to community capacity building. It uses a framework developed by Chaskin, Brown, Venkatesh, and Vidal, which defines four key characteristics of community capacity (a sense of community, commitment to community among its members, the ability to solve problems, and access to resources) and identifies four specific strategies for building community capacity (leadership development, organizational development, community organizing, and organizational collaboration). The chapter uses theories of deliberation and reports of deliberative events to examine deliberation's contribution to each characteristic and strategy in the community capacity-building framework. A review of the literature suggests that deliberative civic engagement can make contributions to all the characteristics of community capacity, and can support the strategies suggested for building community capacity. However, future research should seek to better understand how deliberative civic engagement makes these contributions.