Carnegie Mellon University

Program for Deliberative Democracy

Department of Philosophy

Nation Wide Initiatives in Deliberative Democracy

A number of countries across the world have used versions of deliberative democracy to address national issues. Jim Fishkin has used Deliberative Polling® techniques to address issues ranging from crime across the UK, to the social and economic situation of the Roma in Bulgaria, to challenges related to rapid urbanization in areas of Ghana (see Deliberative Polling® locations in Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab)

Australia and Canada have embedded citizen deliberation in their national politics and Ireland used Citizen Juries to vet the materials used in their national referendum on legalizing abortion.

With CMU’s Kenya Dworkin, the Program for Deliberative Democracy worked for several years on laying the groundwork for the integration of the principles of deliberative democracy on the island nation of Cuba. The main project involved the institution of ‘Constitutional Roundtables’ modeled on deliberative forums. An overview of these efforts is available in both English and Spanish.