Abstract
Public institutions in Australia are subject to increasing statutory requirements to engage their communities, and consequently the number of practitioners has increased. These participatory and deliberative practitioners design, deliver, and evaluate democratic processes on behalf of public institutions. This article argues that the practitioner body has broadened, where different types of practitioners can now be identified in Australia. This broadening is the result of three main variables: (1) whether practitioners are employed by or contracted to public institutions; (2) whether they are engaged to work on projects with limited or considerable scope; and (3) whether they are focused on limited time frame processes or entire programs. Drawing on the results of a mixed method study, including survey and semi-structured interviews, this article explores the work contexts that shape the contemporary Australian practitioner, drawing lessons that can inform their practice in other contexts.
Highlights
Over three-quarters (77.6%) of practitioners identified as female, with 22.1% identifying as male, and 0.3% identifying as “other.” Not surprisingly, this is disproportionate with larger workforce demographics, where females represent 47.5% of the total workforce (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016)
Forthcoming research adjacent to this study has found that Australian practitioners view impartiality differently than those in other contexts preferring to refer to an ambiguous “independence” rather than neutrality as traditionally understood
This study has confirmed the three themes identified in the literature: the influential role of practitioners; the broadening of practice which has resulted in different types of practitioners being recognizable; and that public institutions face complex challenges in their participatory and deliberative work
Summary
Participatory and deliberative practitioners are a group of emerging professionals (Christensen, 2018a) who undertake important tasks in relation to participatory and deliberative processes such as process design, coordination, procurement, internal advocacy, facilitation, information creation and dissemination, reporting, and evaluation (Bherer, Gauthier & Simard, 2017a; Cooper & Smith, 2012; Hendriks & Carson, 2008; Lee, 2014, 2017). It is reasonable to infer that a significant number of practitioners are employed by or contracted to public institutions. The purpose of these processes initiated by public institutions varies: from the ambitious creation of democratic innovations to address democratic deficits (Bua & Escobar, 2018; Pratchett, 1999; Smith, 2009) to the less ambitious, and at times tokenistic meeting of statutory requirements (Christensen, 2018b; Leighninger, 2014). Many Australian practitioners use the terms “community engagement practitioner” or “professional.” The term “participatory and deliberative practitioners” is used in this article to encompass all these terms, despite the subtle differences that may exist between them
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