Deliberative Development Research Articles

Citizens by Design: A Learning Community–Based Strategy for Building Civic Engagement into General Education

Abstract Between historic changes in American undergraduate student demography and increasing stresses on civil society, institutions of higher education face mounting pressure to help their students foster strong civic skills and practices. At Queens University of Charlotte, the authors leveraged a curriculum revision process to create a general education–civic engagement partnership that features a required academic civic engagement component for all undergraduates, including traditional, transfer, and post-traditional students. The authors embedded this experience by combining two high-impact practices as we locate it within a learning community framework featuring cross-disciplinary examinations of “wicked” problems. As a result of this approach, they have faculty working in civic engagement from a great diversity of disciplines. After reviewing successes and challenges from the first several years of this program, they found that their program used some consistent pedagogies that they have organized into four distinct but related civic engagement types: (a) bridging to the community, (b) problem-based, organizational engagement, (c) the constructs of community, and (d) deliberative skill development. This exploratory framework for civic engagement can assist programs seeking to support faculty at varying levels of civic engagement teaching experience and different disciplinary perspectives.

Urban regulation and diverse housing supply: An Investigative Panel

This research examined the barriers and challenges within the housing system for delivering housing supply that is more diverse in terms of size and built form; tenure; development model; and affordability level.

‘Deliberative development’: Australia’s Baugruppen movement and the challenge of greater social inclusion

German Baugruppen are the most well-known of the collaborative, self-organized alternatives to speculatively produced multi-residential housing, delivering housing at a significant price discount to market. However, Baugruppen have been criticized for excluding less affluent households with financing and social capital barriers identified by Hamiduddin and Gallent as reinforcing socio-economic stratification. Collaborative, self-organized housing is, however, under-researched and there has been scant attention to financing. Collaborative, self-organized multi-residential housing in Australia is known as ‘deliberative’ development to differentiate it from ‘speculative’ development. We draw on case studies of deliberative development in Australia to reveal how projects are financed and how financing impacts on social equity considerations. Proponents of contemporary deliberative development in Australia are deeply concerned about housing affordability and declining rates of home ownership. This has focused attention on development financing as a key to systemic change paving the way for inclusion of less wealthy households.

Balancing Legitimate Critical-Care Interests: Setting Defensible Care Limits Through Policy Development

Critical-care decision making is highly complex, given the need for health care providers and organizations to consider, and constructively respond to, the diverse interests and perspectives of a variety of legitimate stakeholders. Insights derived from an identified set of ethics-related considerations have the potential to meaningfully inform inclusive and deliberative policy development that aims to optimally balance the competing obligations that arise in this challenging, clinical decision-making domain. A potential, constructive outcome of such policy engagement is the collaborative development of an as-fair-as-possible dispute resolution process that incorporates an appropriated-justified, defensible critical-care obligation threshold.

Identifying the financial barriers to deliberative, affordable apartment development in Australia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the financial barriers to the supply of affordable apartments in Australia and examine whether demand aggregation and “deliberative development” (self-build) can form a new affordable housing “structure of provision”. Design/methodology/approach – Market design, an offshoot of game theory, is used to analyse the existing apartment development model, with “deliberative development” proposed as an innovative alternative. Semi-structured interviews with residential development financiers are used to evaluate whether deliberative development could obtain the requisite development finance. Findings – This investigation into the financial barriers of a deliberative development model suggests that, while there are hurdles, these can be addressed if key risks in the exchange process can be mitigated. Hence, affordability can be enhanced by “deliberative development” replacing the existing speculative development model. Research limitations/implications – Market design is a new innovative theoretical approach to understand the supply of housing, offering practical solutions to affordable apartment supply in Australia. Originality/value – This research identifies financial barriers to the supply of affordable apartments; introduces theoretical understandings gained from market design as an innovative solution; and provides evidence that a new structure of building provision based on “deliberative development” could become a key means of achieving more affordable and better designed apartments.

Making apartments affordable: moving from speculative to deliberative development

Urban consolidation policies in Australia presuppose apartments as the new dominant housing type, but much of what the market has delivered is criticised as over-development, and as being generic, poorly-designed, environmentally unsustainable and unaffordable. In contrast to the usual focus on planning regulation and construction costs as the primary issues needing to be addressed in order to increase the supply of quality, affordable apartment housing this paper uses Ball’s (1983) ‘structure of provision’ approach to outline the key processes informing apartment development to reveal a substantial gap in critical understanding of how apartments are developed in Australia, and identifies economic problems not previously considered by policymakers. Using mainstream economic analysis to review the market itself, the authors found high search costs, demand risk, problems with exchange, and lack of competition present key barriers to achieving greater affordability and limit the extent to which ‘speculative’ developers can respond to the preferences of would be owner-occupiers of apartments. The existing development model, which is reliant on capturing uplift in site value, suits investors seeking rental yields in the first instance and capital gains in the second instance, and actively encourages housing price inflation. This is exacerbated by lack of density restrictions, such as have existed in inner Melbourne for many years, which permits greater yields on redevelopment sites. The price of land in the vicinity of such redevelopment sites is pushed up as landholders' expectation of future yield is raised. All too frequently existing redevelopment sites go back onto the market as vendors seek to capture the uplift in site value and exit the project in a risk free manner. The paper proposes three major reforms. Firstly, that the market for apartment development be re-designed following insights from the economic field of ‘Market Design’ (a branch of Game Theory). A two-sided matching market for new apartments is proposed, where demand-side risks can be mitigated via consumer aggregation. Secondly, consumers should be empowered through support for ‘deliberative’, or ‘do-it-yourself’ (DYI) development models, in order to increase competition, expand access, and promote responsiveness to consumer needs and preferences. Finally, planning schemes need to impose density restrictions (in the form of height limits, floor space ratios or bedroom quotas) in localities where housing demand is high, in order to dampen speculation and de-risk development by creating certainty. However restrictions on over-development on larger infill sites needs to be offset by permitting intensification of ‘greyfield’ suburbs. Aggregating existing housing lots to enable precinct regeneration and moderate height and density increases would permit better use of airspace thus allowing design outcomes that can optimise land use while retaining amenity.

The development of the media and the public sphere in Mexico

This article reviews the development of the Mexican media, both broadcast and print, through an analysis of their current legal framework, culture, ownership structure and common practices. It is based on archival research, interviews and a review of the available literature. Its analytical framework is based on concepts of the theory of deliberative democracy developed by contemporary philosophers such as Jürgen Habermas, James Bohman, Jane Mans-bridge and Joshua Cohen. Within this framework, it argues that the major obstacles to democracy in Mexico, which include social and economic inequalities, patronage and a weak rule of law, also constitute obstacles to the deliberative development of the Mexican media.

The Benefits of Practice Standards and Other Practice-Defining Texts: And Why Healthcare Ethicists Ought to Explore Them

This article outlines one element of the work carried out by a group of Canadian ethicists [Practicing Healthcare Ethicists Exploring Professionalization (PHEEP)]--to begin the deliberative development of a set of practice standards for the Canadian context. To provide a backdrop, this article considers the nature and purpose of practice standards as they are used by regulated professions and how they relate to other practice-defining texts such as competencies, codes of ethics and statements of scope of practice. A comparative review of current practice-defining documents developed within the field of healthcare ethics practice suggests that practice standards are not yet among them. A review of the practice standards and related texts articulated by various other professions, both regulated and not yet regulated, indicates that while these groups of documents serve to define and clarify various dimensions of practice in individual disciplines, there is no clear standardized approach to the terminology, structure and content across these documents. It is suggested that this variability presents a degree of flexibility that ought to allay many of the anxieties that have been expressed about practice standards in healthcare ethics: practitioners, PHEs, are at liberty to define their practice as they see fit, albeit within reasonable parameters if regulation is sought. A proposal for a draft structure and potential content for Canadian healthcare ethics practice standards is offered.

A New Purpose for International Broadcasting: Subsidizing Deliberative Technologies in Nontransitioning States

In failed or failing states, deliberation as it is operationalized in much of the political communication literature is inapplicable. These states lack advanced communication infrastructures, press systems and public spheres, which require high literacy rates, education, the rule of law and other elements of an enabling regulatory environment. Rather than imagining deliberation as a series of exchanges over focused issues, a scaled down standard of deliberation is appropriate. Such a model could simply involve enhanced communication and information sharing among the citizenry, spreading political norms that aid some level of quasi-governance or simply improving the quality of life in challenging circumstances. Even in both starkly repressive countries and states where governments barely exist, some new communication technologies are increasingly available and they facilitate deliberative exchange. At the same time, foreign international broadcasters are complementing their traditional broadcasting with the development and promotion of deliberation technologies. This paper suggests international broadcasting agencies can find new purpose by utilizing emerging ICTs for the purpose of deliberative development in failed and failing states where public deliberation is under-developed.

Empowerment, Deliberative Development, and Local-Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power

The salience of the concept of “empowerment” has been more often deductively claimed than carefully defined or inductively assessed, by development scholars and practitioners alike. Using evidence from an in-depth, mixed methods examination of the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP) in rural Indonesia, we define it here as deliberative development interventions that build marginalised groups’ capacity to engage local level governing elites using routines of deliberative contestation. Our data show that while KDP induced local level development conflicts, it also provided tools for peacefully resolving them, including associational spaces, incentives for marginalised group participation, and resources for argumentation such as facilitators. Ultimately, marginalised groups used these spaces, incentives, and resources to modestly but consistently shift local level power relations, regardless of the pre-existing institutional context. By contrast, marginalised groups in non-KDP development conflicts from otherwise similar contexts used “mobilisational contestation” to generate comparatively erratic and inconsistent shifts in power relations that depended greatly on the pre-existing context.

Empowerment, Deliberative Development, and Local-Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power

The salience of the concept of “empowerment” has been deductively claimed more often than carefully defined or inductively assessed by development scholars and practitioners alike. We use evidence from a mixed methods examination of the Kecamatan (subdistrict) Development Project (KDP) in rural Indonesia, which we define here as development interventions that build marginalized groups’ capacity to engage local-level governing elites using routines of deliberative contestation. “Deliberative contestation” refers to marginalized groups’ practice of exercising associational autonomy in public forums using fairness-based arguments that challenge governing elites’ monopoly over public resource allocation decisions. Deliberative development interventions such as KDP possess a comparative advantage in building the capacity to engage because they actively provide open decision-making spaces, resources for argumentation (such as facilitators), and incentives to participate. They also promote peaceful resolutions to the conflicts they inevitably spark. In the KDP conflicts we analyze, marginalized groups used deliberative contestation to moderately but consistently shift local-level power relations in contexts with both low and high preexisting capacities for managing conflict. By contrast, marginalized groups in non-KDP development conflicts from comparable villages used “mobilizational contestation” to generate comparatively erratic shifts in power relations, shifts that depended greatly on the preexisting capacity for managing conflict.

Inequality and Deliberative Development: Revisiting Bolivia's Experience with the PRSP

The deliberative‐development approach to policy‐making has gained popularity in both academic and policy circles. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the requirements necessary for deliberation to have beneficial effects on policy, some of which are detailed in this article, in particular the need for equality among deliberators. The article examines Bolivia's 2000 National Dialogue and demonstrates the effects of inequality — not between elites and non‐elites, but between groups within civil society — on the legitimacy of the outcome. Its findings have important implications for the design of deliberative‐development institutions.

Empowerment, Deliberative Development and Local Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power

The salience of the concept of empowerment has been more often deductively claimed than carefully defined or inductively assessed, by development scholars and practitioners alike. Using evidence from an in-depth, mixed methods examination of the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP) in rural Indonesia, we define it here as deliberative development interventions that build marginalised groups' capacity to engage local level governing elites using routines of deliberative contestation. Our data show that while KDP induced local level development conflicts, it also provided tools for peacefully resolving them, including associational spaces, incentives for marginalised group participation, and resources for argumentation such as facilitators. Ultimately, marginalised groups used these spaces, incentives, and resources to modestly but consistently shift local level power relations, regardless of the pre-existing institutional context. By contrast, marginalised groups in non-KDP development conflicts from otherwise similar contexts used mobilisational contestation to generate comparatively erratic and inconsistent shifts in power relations that depended greatly on the pre-existing context.

The Origins of EPA's Indian Program

The United States Environmental Protection Agency's modern Indian Program - which recognizes Indian tribes as local governments appropriately responsible for environmental management in Indian country - has drawn increasing fire in the last decade. Indian country environmental litigation has proliferated as states and non-Indian actors have challenged Agency decisions delegating program primacy to tribes, denying primacy to states, and retaining federal authority in the absence of tribal primacy. Without question, the genesis of these modern decisions, and the policy principles they reflect, can be traced directly to EPA's official Indian Policy, adopted in 1984, and reaffirmed by every Administrator since that time. This article contributes to scholarly discussions on Indian country environmental law by identifying and analyzing the motivations, assumptions and goals of EPA's nascent Indian program, which served as the foundation for the modern Indian Program. The article undertakes a legal and historical analysis of: EPA's creation and early regulatory activities; its first Indian Program actions; the first case testing EPA's Indian program; the development and content of EPA's first Indian Policy in 1980; the failure of the 1980 Policy; the deliberative development of its successor, the 1984 Indian Policy; and the substantive content of the 1984 Policy and its accompanying Implementation Guidance. The article concludes that the Agency's Indian Program was initially born of necessity in a program-specific context, and expanded into a cross-program, Agency-wide institutional approach under the influence of two important shifts in federal policy occurring at the time. The necessity derived from EPA's view that in the absence of congressional delegation, states generally lacked civil regulatory authority adequate to protect the Indian country environment. Congress' silence in the environmental laws of the early 1970s convinced EPA that an unacceptable regulatory void existed in Indian country. The solution, EPA posited, was an approach according tribal governments a regulatory role akin to the role states enjoyed under the cooperative federalism model of environmental management. That approach harmonized with the contemporary shift in national environmental policy away from independent state control and toward increasing federal supremacy, but in partnership with local governments. And, the state-like approach was also in tune with federal Indian policy's movement toward tribal self-determination and away from federal control of Indian programs.

From transplants to hybrids: Exploring institutional pathways to growth

Within the study of economic growth and development, there is a consensus of sorts that “institutions matter.” However, decades after political scientists, sociologists, and dissident economists first suggested that institutions played a crucial role in promoting the explosive post-war economic growth of first Japan and then the East Asian “tigers,” the question of which particular institutions matter for growth, and exactly how they matter, is very much alive. We address this question in this special issue. The contributors to this volume, who approach the problem from distinct disciplines, all react against a pronounced tendency among some social scientists and development practitioners to search for universal “best-practice” institutions. Peter Evans, a sociologist, terms this type of thinking “institutional monocropping” and suggests that processes of “deliberative development” may offer a promising alternative to the imposition of institutional blueprints. Stephan Haggard, a political scientist, details the elusiveness of institutional formulas for balancing laissez-faire economics and state intervention or for solving the credible commitment problems highlighted by rational choice institutionalism, and suggests that, in the case of East Asia, multiple institutional conjunctures have proved felicitous for promoting growth. Gerard Roland, an economist who in his studies of the transition from socialism has been a leading critic of imposed institutional models, here provides a framework for understanding the failure of institutional transplantation and urges economists not to neglect the role of social norms and values. David M. Woodruff, a political scientist, undertakes a comparative study of corporate governance laws

Development as institutional change: The pitfalls of monocropping and the potentials of deliberation

Development theory has moved from a single-minded focus on capital accumulation toward a more complex understanding of the institutions that make development possible. Yet, instead of expanding the range of institutional strategies explored, the most prominent policy consequence of this “institutional turn” has been the rise of “institutional monocropping”: the imposition of blueprints based on idealized versions of Anglo-American institutions, the applicability of which is presumed to transcend national circumstances and cultures. The disappointing results of monocropping suggest taking the institutional turn in a direction that would increase, rather than diminish, local input and experimentation. The examples of Porto Alegre, Brazil, and Kerala, India, reinforce Amartya Sen’s idea that “public discussion and exchange” should be at the heart of any trajectory of institutional change, and flag potential gains from strategies of “deliberative development” which rely on popular deliberation to set goals and allocate collective goods.