Deliberative Civic Engagement in Public Administration and Policy

This article explores deliberative civic engagement in the context of public administration and policy. The field of public administration and policy is seeing a resurgence of interest in deliberative civic engagement among scholars, practitioners, politicians, civic reformers, and others. Deliberative processes have been used to address a range of issues: school redistricting and closings, land use, and the construction of highways, shopping malls, and other projects. Additional topics include race and diversity issues, crime and policing, and involvement of parents in their children’s education. Finally, participatory budgeting, which has been used with success in Porto Alegre, Brazil since 1989 and has been employed in over 1,500 cities around the world, has been one of the most promising forms of deliberative civic engagement. Finally, the article suggests what we must do to build a civic infrastructure to support deliberative civic engagement, including government, but also practitioners and scholars.