The deliberative democracy handbook : strategies for effective civic engagement in the twenty-first century / editors, John Gastil, Peter Levine.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface / John Gastil and Peter Levine -- 1. A nation that (sometimes) likes to talk : a brief history of public deliberation in the United States / John Gastil and William M. Keith -- 2. What can we learn from the practice of deliberative democracy? / Mark Button and David Michael Ryfe -- 3. National issues forums : a network of communities promoting public deliberation / Keith Melville, Taylor L. Willingham and John R. Dedrick -- 4. Electoral deliberation and public journalism / Michelle Charles, Harris Sokoloff and Chris Satullo -- 5. Deliberative polling : from experiment to community resource / James Fishkin and Cynthia Farrar -- 6. Consensus conferences and planning cells : lay citizen deliberations / Carolyn M. Hendriks -- 7. Citizen juries : creating a trustworthy voice of the people / Ned Crosby and Doug Nethercut -- 8. Adpating and combining deliberative designs : juries, polls, and forums / Lyn Carson and Janette Hartz-Karp -- 9. Bringing the public and the government together through on-line dialogues / Patricia A. Bonner, Robert Carlitz, Rosemary Gunn, Laurie E. Maak and Charles A. Ratliff -- 10. A town meeting for the twenty-first century / Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Joe Goldman and Steven Brigham -- 11. Collaborative learning and the public's stewardship of its forests / Antony S. Cheng and Janet D. Fiero -- 12. Participation and public policies in Brazil / Vera Schattan P. Coelho, Barbara Pozzoni and Mariana Cifuentes Montoya -- 13. Deliberative city planning on the Philadephia waterfront / Harris Sokoloff, Harris M. Steinberg and Steven N. Pyser -- 14. Study circles : local deliberation as the cornerstone of deliberative democracy / Patrick L. Scully and Martha L. McCoy -- 15. e-thePeople.org : large-scale, ongoing deliberation / G. Michael Weiksner -- 16. Learning democracy centers : where the public works / Carole J. Schwinn, John T. Kesler and David R. Schwinn -- 17. Disagreement and consensus : the importance of dynamic updating in public deliberation / Christopher F. Karpowitz and Jane Mansbridge -- 18. Growing governance deliberatively : lessons and inspiration from Hampton, Virginia / William R. Potapchuk, Cindy Carlson and Joan Kennedy -- 19. Future directions for public deliberation / Peter Levine, Archon Fung and John Gastil.

The Deliberative Democracy Handbook is a terrific resource for democratic practitioners and theorists alike. It combines rich case material from many cities and types of institutional settings with careful reflection on core principles. It generates hope for a renewed democracy, tempered with critical scholarship and political realism. Most important, this handbook opens a spacious window on the innovativeness of citizens in the U.S. (and around the world) and shows how the varied practices of deliberative democracy are part of a larger civic renewal movement.