Bringing Deliberative Technologies into Use

Jodi Sandfort & Kathryn Quick

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota

January 2015

Paper under peer review

Abstract: This paper conceptualizes public deliberation as a technology, enacted as individuals

use resources to enable processes and results. Using ethnographic methods, we analyze the

application of a particular set of deliberative practices, Art of Hosting, in three public service

redesign cases. Our analysis reveals that facilitators bring particular techniques, material objects,

and conceptual frameworks to deliberative settings, but the consequences of the resources are not

predictable. Instead, the technology and outcomes are fundamentally shaped by how these

elements are integrated and brought into use by facilitators and participants. Understanding these

dynamic processes as deliberative technology points practitioners and scholars to a more

sophisticated understanding that can improve practice and enrich theory.

1

Contemporary studies of governance illuminate the prevalence of participatory decision-

making in inter-organizational networks, collaborative arrangements, and agency engagement

with the public. They also raise questions about the practices managers and agencies need to be

effective in these environments, as they are increasingly expected to take part in or even facilitate

processes that involve diverse parties in making and implementing policies. Many claims are

made about the necessity and benefits of participatory processes. Yet often these assertions are

accompanied by recognition of implementation challenges because they often fall short of

aspirations. Accounts from practitioners and the scholarly literature make clear that merely

espousing a particular technique, facilitator, or framework does not reliably produce a particular

kind of process or outcome (Fung 2006, Jacobs, Cook, and Carpini 2009, Nabatchi et al. 2012,

Bryson et al. 2013). Public participation is demanding work, considered most worthwhile when

it is the unique or simplest way to gain otherwise missing information, to support citizenship

development, or to legitimacy and political support (Thomas 2012). However, more research is

needed on the ways in which participation is enacted, exploring the gap between expectations

and results; studies that provide concrete implications for public administration practice are

particularly necessary.

This paper provides such an account. We conceptualize deliberation as a technology,

enacted as individuals use resources to enable processes and results. Deliberative events do not

merely happen: they are crafted through the interactions of techniques, material objects,

conceptual frameworks, and contexts. We guide practitioners to re-conceptualize these features

of deliberative processes as resources, which are activated by facilitators and participants. As a

result, through this analysis, we provide constructs and language that enable public and nonprofit

managers who organize or participate in deliberative decision-making to focus their attention on

2

alignment and use of resources to attempt to create desired results. The analysis also draws

attention to the significant contributions participants make in bringing a deliberative technology

into use in a particular context.

This topic is salient because of practitioners’ and scholars’ growing interest in forms of

public engagement that complicate the relationships of public managers and other participants.

In this regard, it is important to note a more general distinction between participation and

deliberation (Quick and Feldman 2011): simple participation involves providing the public or

clients with opportunities to be informed about or provide input about proposed policies and

programs; deliberation moves beyond those foundational steps to incorporate multi-directional

dialogues in which stakeholders exchange diverse views, define priorities, and help to construct

potential solutions to collective problems and criteria for evaluating them (Chambers 2003,

Gastil 2000, Jacobs, Cook, and Carpini 2009). Ideally, efforts are also made to address power

differences that stand in the way of including diverse views or legitimating the perspectives and

needs of others (Young 2000). Deliberation sometimes may also involve co-production,

meaning that it intentionally involves the participants in producing the decision-making process,

problem definition and desired outcomes (Quick and Feldman 2011). In co-production, the

process is designed to be emergent, created collaboratively, rather than pre-determined. Both

deliberative and co-productive processes can actively de-center public and nonprofit managers’

authority, by involving the public or clients in actively constructing the policy agenda, problem

definition, or solutions through deliberation.

Yet, proponents assert that deliberative processes can create many positive results, such

as enabling participants to understand substantive issues, explain and appreciate others’ interests

and perspectives, explore conflicts, build their abilities to develop or act upon solutions

3

(Gutmann and Thompson 2004; Jacobs, Cook, and Carpini 2009). Deliberative processes that are

co-produced are often lauded for democratizing decision-making by sharing authority; it is

believed such processes strengthen relationships for ongoing, adaptive policy decision-making

and implementation (Roberts 2004; Bovaird 2007; Quick and Feldman 2011). Yet many

attempts to realize the ideals of deliberation and co-production fail (Young 2000; Fung 2006;

Quick and Feldman 2011; Nabatchi et al. 2012). A range of reasons is given for the disparity

between aspirations and realizations, including a mismatch of the facilitation techniques with the

purpose for the particular effort (Bryson et al. 2013), the inadequate use of reason and evidence

(Gastil and Dillard 2006), insufficient time (Creighton 2005), or the absence of a neutral and

competent facilitator (Schwarz 2002; Nabatchi et al. 2012). These explanations imply the

success of deliberative processes can be predicted by the absence or presence of a particular set

of factors.

This study questions that assumption and, instead, offers data to explore how deliberative

processes undertaken to advance collective action are dynamically crafted. From a comparison

of three engagement settings in which a common set of resources is available but used in various

ways, we adapt an idea from organizational studies and develop the concept of deliberative

technology. We selected the three cases from a larger ethnographic study focused on examining

the purposeful introduction of a particular engagement approach, globally known as the Art of

Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter (hereafter, the “Art of Hosting”), in one U.S.

state. We exploit unique field research conditions, in which hundreds of facilitators were trained

in this approach, to explore three instances where participation was pursued for public service

design. Through analysis of these cases, we provide a scholarly contribution to the practice and

theory of deliberation. The analysis reveals that deliberative technology is created dynamically

4

as facilitators and participants apply and activate resources in particular contexts. This type of

technology is created at the intersection of two distinct forces: the structuring forces of

recognizable techniques, material objects, and conceptual frameworks, and the generative forces

of social interactions among facilitators and participants as they interpret and create meaning

about these resources (Fligstein & McAdams, 2011; Giddens, 1984; Latour, 2005).

RESEARCH METHODS AND SETTING

This contribution emerges from data gathered about three implementation projects in

which practitioners trained in the Art of Hosting applied the methods and approach they had ben

taught. To pursue our questions related to how deliberative technology is enacted, we compare

the process and results from cases that shared a number of commonalities: a set of tools

available from common training, a common location (a single Midwestern state in the United

States), policy content (public service system structure and effectiveness), and participants who

were either public and nonprofit managers or diverse citizens. We rely upon multiple data

collection methods to construct a thick account of the settings, a key foundation for the validity

of interpretivist research (Geertz 1973; Lin 1998; Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2013). Our data

sources include participant observation, extensive field notes, semi-structured interviews, and a

review of documentation from the training and implementation projects.

It is important to note this is not a study of the Art of Hosting per se, but rather a study of

how deliberative technology is enacted. Settings espousing the Art of Hosting are particularly

apt contexts for researching this topic because it is considered especially conducive for

organizing deliberative processes that also involve participants in co-producing the process as

well as decision outcomes (Wheatley and Frieze 2011). However, the Art of Hosting is not a

5

standardized set of practices. While there is consistent training for practitioners, it is enacted in

different ways in particular instances and settings. These variations enrich the interpretive

analysis we undertake. Analysis of several settings allows us to discern some common,

recognizable but not reified practices (Reckwitz 2002, Orlikowski 2010, Bryson 2010). Through

analysis of these settings, we developed grounded theory about how deliberative technology is

constituted. As we explore in the conclusion, our findings about types of elements that contribute

to deliberative technology, and how they interact dynamically in particular contexts, would apply

to other settings and approaches to organizing deliberation.

All of the facilitators examined in this investigation experienced the same training

workshop in 2011. All participants in their training cohorts (n=64) participated in semi-

structured research interviews regarding what they had learned and how they were applying it

(Authors’ peer-reviewed article, in press). Those data indicate that 89% consider the training to

have been ‘useful’ or ‘very useful’ to their practice. Furthermore, after six to eight months, they

recalled well the specific techniques and frameworks that we select for analysis in the three

implementation cases in this study, indicating they are an easily accessible part of shared toolkit

of potential techniques.

In this analysis, we exploit this common exposure to observe how facilitators enacted

participation in three implementation projects. Our analysis focuses on the most easily recalled

techniques, materials, and frameworks to which they were exposed in their hosting training. In

addition to sharing comparable sets of participants, policy content, and location, all three

implementation projects drew upon public or philanthropic resources to support the project costs.

And in each case, sponsors had similar purposes for supporting a participatory approach: each

did not have predetermined ideas of what the results should be; each believed such a process

6

could create systems redesign; and, each wanted to address both topical concerns and build

relationships among participants. The cases differ in other aspects, described later, namely the

topic, frequency of meetings, and overall duration of the engagement effort, but have enough

common ground to permit comparative analysis.

We gathered various types of data about these specific implementation cases. First, we

conducted interviews with 30 individuals, conducted between two and eight months after the

conclusion of the events. We interviewed “participants” (people invited to participate in these

processes), “callers” (i.e., sponsors or conveners) and “hosts/facilitators,” and use hereafter refer

to them in these ways. In these interviews, we probed the nature of the engagement design,

implementation, and results; we audio recorded the interviews, summarized them, and used

NVivo for thematic coding. Second, we conduct participant observation. In two cases, one

author or research assistants attended and composed field notes. In the third, we viewed

videotapes of the engagement processes and conducted informal interviews with actors to better

understand the events, systematically recording all in field notes. These sources of data were

incorporated into the NVivo database. Finally, having been trained in the Art of Hosting in

parallel with the facilitators studied in this paper, we have instrumentalized our participant

observer position to identify and problematize the logics and practices in use in this community

(Marcus 1998; Fortun 2001). We enhanced the validity of our analysis by intentionally

sustaining some skepticism about the claims made by trainers regarding the impacts of the

hosting approach. We also enhanced the reliability of our data interpretation and pursued

disciplined consideration of alternative interpretations by having multiple members of the

research team independently conduct data analysis, and carefully examining the convergences

7

and divergences in our interpretations (Adcock and Collier 2001). In all, we consulted and

coded materials developed before, during, and after the engagement process.

These multiple methods of data collection and analysis enabled us to assemble thick

description, triangulate the data, and strengthen our inferences regarding patterns in the settings

and practices we observed (Geertz 1973; Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2013). We analyzed these

data inductively using thematic coding in a grounded theory development process through

iterative analysis of participants’ frameworks and relevant concepts from the literature (Glaser

and Strauss 1967). Through multiple, iterative rounds of data collection, analysis, and literature

reviews, we fleshed out patterns and themes, and realized this analysis had implications for

revealing a more complete understanding of deliberative technology.

Research Setting: The Art of Hosting

Hosting practitioners learn a range of engagement techniques for enabling deep dialogue

and high quality conversations, including circle process (Baldwin and Linnea 2010), Open Space

Technology (Owen 1997), World Café (Brown and Isaacs 2005), and appreciative inquiry

(Cooperrider and Whitney 2000). Practitioners assert the hosting approach has numerous

benefits, including supporting more efficient processes, enhancing relationships, increasing

participants’ satisfaction and commitment to implementation, and producing higher quality

decision results (Authors’ paper). Yet these aspirations are not realized in every engagement

process applying a hosting approach. While certain techniques, material objects and conceptual

frameworks are emphasized (Figure 1), trainers stress their use should be driven by context.

Analyzing their implementation allows us to see how these elements are enlisted in different

combinations, with what effects, to create a deliberative technology.

<Figure 1 about here>

8

Given this flexibility in implementation, it is important to explicitly note what makes

hosting a cohesive and distinctive approach in its various applications around the world. First,

Art of Hosting is presented as a particular type of engagement practice; it is intended to support

work on complex problems through deliberation. In their training, practitioners are also taught

the conceptual frameworks and techniques to which they are introduced may be very useful fore

enabling an emergent, co-productive setting in which neither the process nor the nature of the

results are specified in advance. (Block 2009; Wheatley and Frieze 2011). Its practitioners

describe hosting as providing tools that distinguish it from other approaches which facilitators

direct participants through a sequence of steps to a type of predetermined result. This is an

example of flexibility in the approach, however. Art of Hosting practitioners do not always opt

for this co-productive approach, treating it simply as an option that may be desirable in some

settings. Second, hosting practitioners are introduced to the approach through an immersive,

three-day training in which they experience the techniques. Many subsequently participate in a

local, national or international community of practice in which they continue practicing,

innovating, and sharing knowledge together (Success Works 2011; Authors’ paper). Third,

hosting explicitly guides facilitators and participants to engage in a deliberative process and

recommends taking an inclusive approach to co-producing the process of deliberation as well as

the decision outcomes. Rather than prescribing strict agendas and outcomes, the practice

emphasizes clarity of purpose around which people can gather to make progress on collective

challenge. This commitment to co-production is reflected in the encouragement to flexibly use

the techniques, objects, and frameworks from training in ways that respond to the circumstances

at hand, a characteristic we exploit through the comparison in this analysis.

9

UNDERSTANDING DELIBERATIVE TECHNOLOGY

Reframing Technology

“Technology” is commonly understood as the hardware and software supporting all

kinds of social interactions and information communication. Among scholars, the proliferation of

social media and advances in information technology has inspired a new wave of investigation,

focused largely on describing how these tools are being used (Diamond 2010; Evans-Cowley and

Hollander 2010; Slotterback 2011) or their efficacy (Macintosh and Whyte 2008). While this

attention is useful, a narrow definition of technology obscures the actual interactions among such

tools, other methods of engagement, and interactions in the room. As Pfister and Godana (2012,

2) observe, “Deliberative technologies facilitate not just information circulation, but discussion

and debate. Deliberative technologies focus just not on the hardware of communication but on

the software and the practices that support a broad-based conversation amongst affected

citizens.”

We take this definition a step further, adopting from organization studies an even broader

understanding of technology as the many activities through which work is accomplished, or the

processes of transforming inputs into outputs or results (Hasenfeld 1983; Sproull and Goodman

1990; Daft 2006; Sandfort 2010). In this notion, technology is the central defining characteristic

of how work is accomplished. An important precedent for this understanding of technology is

that the meaning or use of a resource is not fixed. Instead, the impact of potential resources

depends upon how they are brought into use by facilitators in each particular instance, including

how they interact with other resources and features of the context (Feldman 2004; Howard-

Grenville 2007; Feldman and Quick 2009; Sandfort 2013). Thus we are proposing that the

particular deliberative technology in use is constituted of an unique assembly of various potential

10

resources, once or over time, to enact a deliberative process and results. This conceptualization

of technology provides a theoretical lens for examining how the many elements of participatory

design are brought together with participant experiences to produce events. It helps us to name

and analyze variations in participatory practice.

Deliberative Resources

There are, of course, distinguishable features of particular deliberation methods.

Successful deliberation does result in part from which resources are used, as well as how they are

used. While there are other kinds of resources that support deliberation (e.g., willing participants,

high-quality information, a regulatory environment conducive to deliberative consultation), in

our analysis we narrow our scope to three general factors that are central in the facilitation of

deliberation: techniques, material objects, and conceptual frameworks. We have constructed this

rough typology of resources for deliberative technology from close comparison of the elements

in our analytical cases (Figure 1). In addition, we draw attention to them because of our dual

goals of both investigating how deliberation is enacted and providing practical guidance. These

elements receive a great deal of attention in the training and practice of practitioners who are

facilitating deliberation, yet we also know that a single technique or framework will not reliably

produce a predictable set of results.

<<Insert Figure 1 about here>>

Techniques are essential to how deliberation works in practice. Lee’s (2011) extensive

analysis documents that practitioners see the existence of many techniques as proof of innovation

in the public deliberation field. And there certainly are a wide array of approaches, including

deliberative polls, citizen juries, online competitions, dialogue circles, and 21st-century town

meetings (Bingham, Nabatchi, & O’Leary, 2005). Yet, amidst this variety, there are significant

11

pressures to standardize techniques through trainings and credentialing programs, perhaps

because many are advocated by a particular developer (Jacobs, Cook, and Carpini 2009; Lee

2011).

Material objects also are important to deliberation because they support interactions and

document results. Objects include the physical setting, supplies, and material products.

Deliberative practitioners pay considerable attention to selecting and preparing the physical

setting. The accessibility of the space, light in the room, and arrangement of chairs and tables, all

are props on the deliberative stage, potentially significant in what unfolds. Similarly, deliberative

practitioners often come with butcher-block paper, colored markers, sticky notes, or bells as

inputs to support deliberation (Girard and Stark 2007). Material products, such as visual models,

meeting minutes, or graphic reports, alter subsequent events by recording what occurred and

sometimes invite deeper engagement by documenting what occurred, what participants learned,

or the progress being made.

Finally, conceptual frameworks are significant because they structure understanding of

how deliberation is organized and provide interpretation of what is unfolding. Conceptual

frameworks can be tactical, such as Tuckman’s (1965) often-used forming-storming-norming-

performing model that helps improve practical understanding of group dynamics. They may also

be ontological, laying out an overarching theory of being. For example, the Australian Citizen

Parliament used Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider and Whitney 2000) as an orienting stance for

a gathering, where it was found to significantly shape the process and result (Curato, Niemeyer,

and Dryzek 2013). Our cases reveal that a deliberative technology emerges when facilitators and

participants bring these techniques, material objects, and conceptual frameworks into use in

12

particular settings. They are the elements of the process flow of activities, designed to structure

interactions.

Analytical Cases of Deliberative Process

To better understand how deliberative technology is constituted, we selected three cases

where hosting was deployed to support public service redesign projects. As in most engagement

processes, many activities and interactions are a part of public participation and deliberation in

such important topics. In the accounts below, we focus our attention on how particular resources

were used in relation to the goals and results of the cases (see Table 1). The first column of Table

2 describes the common elements that we focus on. In our description of each case, we highlight

both a common engagement technique (World Café) and some of the particular material objects

that are created from the events. Each also describes how the multiple facilitators trained in the

Art of Hosting deployed specific conceptual frameworks from that model. These accounts help

focus our comparison on similar resources and see the technological process that unfolded in

each instance. Yet, of course, the cases vary in substantive topic, intensity and duration. As

attested by study participants’ statements about the success of the efforts, they also varied in their

results. Taken together, this analysis reveals interesting dynamics in how a deliberative

technology is enacted in practice, and to what effect.

<<Insert Table 1 about here>>

<<Insert Table 2 about here>>

Local Government Innovation

Our first case engaged government officials across the state in a series of discussions

about sustaining a wide range of public services at the local level. Undertaken during significant

13

state-level budget shortfalls, it was believed the meetings could spark dialogue about promising

solutions to operational problems. State legislators had created a bipartisan Redesign Caucus

which, by working together with other groups, secured local foundation support. Together, these

groups identified several goals for the proposed meetings: alleviating gridlock through enabling

the exchange of ideas about collaboration already happening; generating political momentum

and legitimacy for state support of local government; and strengthening relationships and trust

among all kinds of local elected officials. The planning group approached and hired Cindy, a

facilitator trained in Art of Hosting with whom some had worked before. She led the design,

which incorporated extensive outreach to invite participants, a brief informational presentation,

and an “adapted” form of World Café. Six meetings were held throughout the state, involving

more than 400 staff and elected officials.

Each followed a pre-established agenda. Participants were assigned to tables to bring

together people from different organizations. After the sponsors encouraged them to

“courageously consider redesign,” the small groups shared a meal and introduced themselves by

describing the value of their own pathway to public service. After a presentation by the state

demographer about economic and demographic changes in the state and the urgency and

significance of the evenings’ work, the groups began a dialogue. They first brainstormed services

or programs that could be redesigned and then explored opportunities for implementing change.

Facilitators, most trained in hosting, supported each table. They were given written ground rules

for civil discourse, detailed agendas including discussion questions, and explicit direction about

the forum’s purpose. Because of time and logistical constraints, Cindy modified several typical

features of the World Café technique for these discussions, such as having participants stay at

their table instead of re-mixing into new groups. Each table assigned a note taker to document

14

the conversation using written templates provided by the hosting team; participants also were

encouraged to informally jot down or draw on large paper with markers.

Results. Afterwards, the meeting sponsors created a number of products. One was a

glossy report that highlighted some examples of public service innovation shared by participants.

The report asserted that through creating “spaces to build and strengthen relationships among

local government leaders,” the process had unleashed insight about redesign necessary in the

political environment. In the minds of the sponsors whom we interviewed afterwards, this

process was a significant improvement over past approaches. They felt it was a more “open”

format than classic facilitation because it provided “respondents the opportunity to answer

however they would like to answer as opposed to a more directed approach that might ask a very

specific question." The report was used at a press conference and posted on the associations’ new

project redesign website. On this same site were two five-minute videos that framed the topic

and showed footage of the interactive process at the gatherings and interviews with officials

about the challenges of innovation.

Uniformly, the sponsors and hosts interviewed asserted that the primary purpose of the

gatherings was building relationships and trust across jurisdictional boundaries so that leaders

could learn from each other. They reported mutual learning and, along with participants, enjoyed

interacting with others with whom they did not often have a chance to exchange ideas. Yet,

building more durable relationships across jurisdictions takes time. One participant reflected a

sentiment expressed by others: “I don't think they realized what the turf issue was and how

strong it is. People say we should work together, but it just never happens.”

Participants whom we interviewed generally appreciated the opportunity to share

problem-solving strategies with people similarly situated, and to have a chance to “dream and to

15

be idealistic.” But often they felt the conversations were too distanced from the challenging

realities of local institutional change. While the Redesign Caucus leaders were confident the

event had accomplished their goal of fostering interest and political will at the state level,

participants did not believe this deliberative process created that result. They did not feel

attached to the report and videos that were produced. One city council member, who had

appreciated the execution of the gathering, registered skepticism about the long-term

consequences, observing, “The only problem is with the brainstorming and the ideas and

everything, with personnel and financial resources lacking, are the agencies able to even do some

of this stuff? Or was it sort of a gathering in futility?”

In the estimation of more seasoned facilitators whom we interviewed, there was some

question about whether or not the process truly used a hosting approach, because of the

incomplete implementation of the World Café technique and the lack of co-hosting or co-

production. The project did not draw upon the table facilitators to develop, debrief, or refine the

process as a team. Instead, a single consultant (Cindy) designed the process to be consistent for

all six statewide meetings, and straightforward enough to allow a rotating group of pre-trained

facilitators to quickly pick up and implement. It was not open to adaptation and modification by

the facilitators or participants. In short, they did not feel that the resources were directed to

really engage participants in deliberation around the purpose – supporting local government

innovation.

HIV/AIDS Field Realignment

Our second case also involved the redesign of public services. When HIV/AIDS erupted

as a public health crisis in the U.S. in the early 1980s, nonprofit agencies developed to advocate

for more effective and responsive action and to help people die with dignity. In recent decades,

16

advances in prevention and treatment have significantly reduced disease transmission and

enhanced survival, changing the services needs of infected people. When the state nonprofit

association offered an opportunity to explore service redesign, four leaders stepped forward to

convene a strategic conversation. They wanted a multi-day gathering that would build trust,

connection, and knowledge to enable collective action around service redesign. They worked

with three people trained in Art of Hosting practices to design the gatherings, who really

embraced the hosting approach to co-creation. Together, the hosts and leaders developed

significant questions and deciding on the engagement techniques to use. They invited other

individuals from advocacy and service nonprofits, health care providers, and state and local

public agencies, as well as some of their clients to engage in dialogue about systems redesign;

twenty-six attended the four day events spread over a month.

The first two days focused on building relationships among this diverse group and

planting ideas for changes. The gathering began with a heartfelt opening circle, in which

participants shared an object and story that represented what motivated them to work with

persons with HIV/ AIDS. Other activities focused on co-creating a timeline of key moments in

their field, briefing documents about policy and fiscal issues in triads, and engaging in small

group World Café conversations about possibilities for field redesign. The second and third days

were structured by another technique, Open Space Technology, where participants develop the

small group session discussion in response to critical questions.

Throughout, participants also were encouraged to help guide the process. On the first day,

a host introduced one of the Art of Hosting’s conceptual frameworks, convergence-divergence

(defined in Table 2). When participants asked for clarification about one of the related concepts

of “realignment,” the host, Maria, invited a guest to share a research-based diagram that laid out

17

a spectrum of realignment options used by nonprofits. The hosts also solicited volunteers for a

team to focus on maintaining the space and beauty of the meeting setting, and another, known as

the “harvesting team,” to document activities and results. They encouraged harvesting team to

be creative about their methods. For example, in response to an expressed a desire to be user-

centered, Maria drew an outline of a human figure on a large piece of paper and posted it on the

wall. As people told stories about their interactions with the people using their services, the

harvesting team placed key words on the human figure to help them capture those stories and

symbolically bring the service recipients into the room. On another occasion, the participants

used red yarn to construct a web to represent the network of HIV/AIDS providers, funders, and

clients present. At the end of the session, the hosts felt good about the co-ownership and

commitment that seemed to be building.

Results. Some results were already becoming evident on the third and final day of the

process, which occurred 10 days after the second day of meetings. The day began with a check-

in on the action steps people had identified at the last gathering. One group had talked about

creating a consolidated, centralized client intake process to enable better inter-agency

coordination and service; a public manager from the lead state agency reported already

beginning to implement this idea. Responding to an expressed need for training on coping with

stigma, another participant invited others to a relevant training being held at her agency. Another

had organized an advocacy meeting with legislators, which he offered to reschedule to allow

anyone interested to participate.

A month after the gatherings, the harvest team and hosts sent out a colorful newsletter. In

addition to discussion highlights, it incorporated photos of the group interacting, including the

network they had built with yarn and the story harvest recorded on the hand-drawn figure of a

18

client. Participants whom we interviewed affirmed the usefulness of those objects in facilitating

conversation and providing a memorable visual of what they had done together. They indicated

that other objects, such as the briefing materials on policy and finance, and the realignment

spectrum, had reduced knowledge barriers and enabled all to engage in system-level discussions.

Certainly, the gatherings had focused their attention on clients’ changing needs and generated

“really good questions,” helping the field to “start thinking innovative and big.” Yet, participants

also left feeling uncertain about how change might happen, its implications for their

organizations, and whether participants could “keep connected and moving forward” once the

process ended. One service provider, saying she’d found the convergence-divergence framework

very helpful, used it in her analysis: “Somewhere along the line, things fell apart. It didn’t

accomplish the coming together goal.”

In the following months, two other types of results became evident. First, coordinated

actions emerged from the ideas and relationships fostered at the events, such as joint funding

applications and policy advocacy coordination to heighten legislators’ awareness of their highest

priority, shared concerns. A new email listserv for the participants and plans to reconvene after a

few months to revisit the service implications also held potential to sustain connections. Yet,

these tactics fell far short of the larger goal of service redesign. Some participants resisted using

the process as a foundation for significant change because they did not buy into the “feel or

outcome” of the events. While there was a united feeling that some interactions had been

“enjoyable,” there was no common opinion about how much the process could have healed

divisions in the field or created consensus about what actions to take. Several felt that no design

could have made a difference because of some agencies’ entrenched attitudes, or because no

process could isolate itself from unequal power relations in the field. In the end, substantial

19

systems redesign, restructuring service delivery or changing relationships with government

agencies on which they depended for fiscal, political, and policy support, was not achieved.

Resilient Regions Project

The final case documented the creation of a 25-year sustainable development plan for

five rural counties. In the wake of the economic recession, elevated unemployment, eroded

natural resources, and out-migration, the sponsors felt urgency to break down the “silos”

separating government agencies and other stakeholders. The project originated with the regional

Economic Development Commission (EDC), a public agency whose executive director engaged

others to apply for the new federal Sustainable Communities Initiative. The proposal differed

from other applications because of its unusual approach to public engagement. The organizers

dedicated two years for engagement to really launch implementation, rather than just create the

plan; they wanted it to be “grassroots driven” and “inclusionary.”

The community received the sizable federal grant, drawing upon resources from several

federal agencies, and ultimately involving over 480 people. Just five weeks before the initial

kick-off meeting, the core team of facilitators attended an Art of Hosting training. That

experience profoundly changed the way they envisioned and organized the project; one of the

hosts, Karla, later reflected on the kick-off meeting with the community, “Much of my speech

was literally… taken from the Art of Hosting workbook!” The sponsors transformed themselves

into hosts, incorporating a variety of techniques, conceptual frameworks, and material objects

from their hosting training throughout the project. They also developed a structure to engage the

various stakeholders, including proportional representation of typically marginalized groups. The

220-member consortium met five times, punctuated with four sessions of thematically defined

work groups focused on key issues. Most meetings were held around small, round tables

20

allowing for people to talk in an intimate way. The work groups intentionally combined people

with sectoral knowledge of the topic with others having no expertise.

At the first large consortium meeting, everyone was asked to write down one word about

what they hoped for from the process. The hosts subsequently created a visual word collage,

reflecting the frequency of each word expressed; this object became a reference, to remind

participants what was important throughout the process. However, the hosts resisted using many

materials, suggesting that, “PowerPoints and pamphlets and data dumping, instead of storytelling

and gathering the information from the people in the room, is not co-creating anything. If we’re

really trying to create change, co-creation is the way to go.”

The hosting team also used conceptual frameworks. In the opening speech, the EDC

director acknowledge the necessity for orienting the participants to the work, to enable them to

make sense of a complex process in which some phases would be difficult but productive if they

could persist. Karla explained:

In our very first kick-off, there were 200-plus people in the room from all over the region. I had five minutes for an opening, [I said] “This is a distributed leadership opportunity, we are going to co-create this. We are going to walk through a chaordic path, we are going to walk through a groan zone....” The facilitators and other people picked up on that right away. They referred back to it in the work group settings, where they'd say, ”Well, this must be that groan zone part, 'cause I'm not digging this right now.”

She continued, “I brought it up intentionally right away…if you've got just one meeting,

it doesn't matter. But if you've got a large project, [it can be helpful] to acknowledge.”

Simply bringing people with diverse perspectives into the room or even making sure each

individual voiced their opinions would not accomplish the results they had desired;

instead, the hosts implemented a deliberative process designed to enable cross-

fertilization and exchange of ideas. At the consortium meetings, they used whole group

21

reports, combined with small group planning and World Café for analysis. They also

incorporated other techniques, including Open Space Technology and circle process, to

insure the appropriate engagement given the presenting issues.

Results. At the conclusion of the project, sponsors created a video testimony

featuring six ideologically diverse participants sharing what happened through the

process. Implementation of the plan began immediately. The first small but significant

changes include private employers’ pooling resources to build a homeless shelter, the

creation of trail projects developed at military training facilities, and a new transit system

between two community college campuses.

Several months after the process concluded, hosts offered stories about how participants

were applying the new relationships, insights, and learning to other aspects of their lives and

work, in addition to concrete policy and program results. Several participants attested to the

value of the word cloud collage as a reference point for the process. As a building contractor told

us, it provided “cohesion” among the people to see what they were collectively hoping for and

enabled a chance for everyone to contribute, because "Everybody's voice was in that collage."

They also emphasized the value of the World Café approach where cumulative questions, small

group discussion, and lots of cross-fertilization of ideas produced a sense of momentum,

connection, and ownership. Describing the work group he facilitated, Ken observed:

Using Open Space Technology and World Cafe is helping people understand they are not as far apart as they seem to think they are [or] as you've been told; they start to understand that there is more commonality. That has been the benefit in facilitating conversations and letting them talk to each other, and solve their own problems, and work through some of these issues, and create recommendations together. In a typical approach, where we just did lecturing and nobody spoke to each other, they wouldn’t see how close together they were.

22

Yet, the deliberative process did not create universally positive feelings and impressions. For

some participants the open-ended flow from work group to consortium and back, without a clear

set of decision points at each step, was disconcerting. One participant, who described herself as

an “outsider,” said she often left meetings feeling unsure of what was accomplished, how much

the group’s input mattered, and how their input was translated into the final documents.

Deliberative Technology in Use

These cases demonstrate the significance of some of the resources that Art of Hosting

practitioners emphasize when they deploy a deliberative technology. Yet they also illuminate the

different ways in which potential resources, depending upon how they are assembled, end up

constituting quite different deliberative technologies with distinctive effects. Examined side by

side, they challenge the conventional understanding that particular techniques, material objects,

and conceptual frameworks, in and of themselves, have predictable impacts (Holman, Devane,

and Cady 2007; Bryson et al. 2013). To delve more deeply into these cases for theoretical

insight, we need to compare the particular resources used in all three. Table 2 provides a

summary; the first column explains the general understanding of the resource from the Art of

Hosting approach and subsequent columns consider that element as implemented in each case.

Through this type of rigorous comparison, we can see the significance of social processes in

determining what results from deliberation.

Deliberative Resources in Use

All three processes used World Café (Brown and Isaacs 2005). This method is one of the

signature techniques of the Art of Hosting approach because of its ability to engage people in

dialogue and enable them to determine the content and result. Yet, as seen in these cases, its

23

application was not deterministic of whether of not the deliberative goal of hosting was realized.

Certainly, one could examine these cases and conclude variation in fidelity to idealized technique

is what caused the variation in results achieved, but this would be only a partial explanation. As

the accounts highlight, techniques interact with other deliberative resources, the overall design,

and other features of the context. Consequently, it is not surprising that the World Café technique

created different results in the three projects. Designed for exploration of ideas rather than

decisions, World Café does not support coordinated, ongoing action. It did support the work of

exploration – and not much else—in the Local Government Innovation case. In the other cases, it

parlayed into deeper work when combined with other techniques (such as Open Space

Technology) and hosting team actions to accelerate creation of follow-up steps. The point is not

that World Café was or was not done properly, but rather that its significance depended upon

how it was brought into use in the context, how it interacted with other resources and individuals

in creating the deliberative technology.

Material objects also are revealed as significant resources for engaging others.

Constructing a yarn net of the HIV/AIDS network or the word cloud of participants’ hopes for

the Resilient Regions project created concrete artifacts that held meaning for participants. These

artifacts acted as what other scholars of deliberation have characterized as “boundary objects”

(Feldman and Khademian 2007) because they provided visual traces of emerging ideas or

decisions made, helping participants engage in thought experiments. Like any resource,

however, any particular object does not automatically do such boundary work, or inherently

produce a “good” or “bad” impact. The Resilient Regions hosts determined that “Power Points

and pamphlets” would not “co-create” knowledge and action in the ways they wanted for their

process; yet, the HIV/AIDS project used handouts to fuel reflective dialogues on the state of their

24

field. In the first instance, the hosts viewed handouts as static, but in the second, they were

enlisted as boundary objects. This distinction underscores that, although commonly recognized

tools of the trade, these objects do not have not have intrinsic importance or consequence.

Material objects become significant when they are used to alter relationships and results (Latour

2005). They become resources for engagement by how they are brought into use, and how that

aligns with the purpose being pursued by actors. Social context – the ways interactions among

participants create the interpretation and meaning about these objects – is quite influential in

determining their significance.

Reports, videos, and newsletters with colorful photographs were material artifacts created

in each of these cases, but there were important differences in the work that these seemingly

comparable products did. Our analysis suggests that how such objects are created is

consequential in light of some of the aspirations associated with deliberation. One desired result

of deliberative processes is for participants to see their own ideas, or evolution of their ideas,

present in the documentation, much as we see in the HIV/AIDS group’s newsletter. The glossy

reports of decisions and policy positions produced after the fact in the Local Government

Innovations case can foster cynicism rather than commitment. One conceptual framework in the

Art of Hosting model emphasizes the significance of such materials by stressing that processes

should be designed with an eye to the type of desired outcome, or what is called the “harvesting”

(Table 2). This move transforms conventional note taking into attention to how to document

what is generated from the process. In the Local Government Innovation case, the main host,

Cindy, was responsible for aggregating all of the notes and creating the text for the glossy report;

this resulted in a static product to which participants did not feel much attachment. In contrast,

participants produced the harvests in the Resilient Regions case (the 25-year plan) and the

25

HIV/AIDS case (e.g., the newsletter, timeline of the field) and have continued to use them to

orient their ongoing work.

In these three cases, other conceptual frameworks were significant in shaping how other

resources were applied and the technology crafted. For example, our three cases were uneven in

terms of how fully the conceptualization of “hosting” as a mode of facilitation – oriented towards

participants’ shaping the content and process, and working through co-hosting teams to respond

to emergent dynamics – was embraced. The HIV/AIDS and Resilient Regions processes drew

strongly on the hosting and co-hosting frameworks, whereas the Local Government Innovation

limited the opportunities for participants and facilitators to adapt the process or content.

Similarly, there was variation in how hosts utilized the divergence-convergence framework to

make sense of and guide the process. In HIV/AIDS and Resilient Regions, both hosts and

participants relied on the framework to organize and sustain themselves through the unexpected

events that unfold when people are engaged in co-creation.

Our comparison among these cases also points to another significant resource for

enabling the kind of deliberation that leads to change, time. The HIV/AIDS and Resilient

Regions projects brought participants together for several hours at a time, repeatedly, over an

extended period for analysis and discussion. The hosting model is agnostic on whether there is a

desired amount of time duration for a process or particular sequencing of steps. However, greater

time – to permit reflection and in-depth work – does seem to support opportunities for systemic

change, a finding echoed in the literature on designing engagement processes (Bryson et al.

2013; Nabatchi et al. 2012). Even when it was adequate to launch some initial steps in system

realignment, time was still a constraint for discerning that progress. Initially the hosts and callers

of the HIV/AIDS process thought it had failed in prompting system realignment, but some of the

26

results (e.g., the joint grant proposals, aligned advocacy tactics) were simply not visible at the

close of the formal deliberations.

This analysis affirms that the view of resources introduced in the beginning of the paper,

namely that the impact of potential resources depends upon how they are implemented. In each

particular instance, facilitators might use them but their significance is in how they interact with

other resources. However, the assemblage of techniques, material objects, and conceptual

frameworks is only part of the dynamic construction of a deliberative technology. Through this

in-depth examination of these engagement projects, we see that the social process enacted by

participants also shapes how these resources are translated into durable results. Figure 2

graphically represents this idea. Facilitators select techniques, materials, and conceptual

frameworks, given the needs of the setting. They are selected almost as ingredients believed to

be essential. Yet these ingredients go into a type of funnel of feasibility determined by the

setting and participants, where the resources and actions of facilitators and participants

ultimately determine what results. This finding raises some important implications for the

current interest among scholars and practitioners in co-production.

<<Insert Figure 2 about here>>

Co-production

We opened the paper with the observation that there is growing interest in participatory

decision-making and that deliberation is one mode increasingly embraced. In this spirit, what is

sometimes referred to as “co-production” goes a step further by actively involving participants in

producing the decision-making process (the means) as well as the policy decision outcomes (the

ends). Scholars of democracy and inclusion assert that co-productive approaches support

democratic ideals for sharing authority, build individual and collective capacity for deliberation,

27

and facilitate emergent decision-making (Roberts 2004; Quick and Feldman 2011). With or

without the Art of Hosting moniker, deliberative processes are often purposefully organized in

this way (Denhardt and Denhardt 2000; Bovaird 2007). However, some of the tools available

through the Art of Hosting are frequently highlighted as especially apt potential resources for

supporting intentionally co-produced processes. For example, Open Space Technology is used

for “unconferences” in which there is no pre-determined program, and participants instead

generate the agenda and schedule by naming and leading break-out sessions of interest to them.

In this way, hosting can be oriented to intentionally supporting deliberative, co-productive

processes. That is, the approach is explicitly focused on helping participants and hosts generate,

guide, or own the process and results together.

What these cases illustrate, however, are two potentially competing dynamics of co-

production. On the one hand, processes that aim to be co-productive do not always accomplish

those goals. Sometimes participants engage, owning the process and what is created, and at other

times they are more passive. They may feel their agency is confined, so they do not have nearly

as much power as they would like to guide the process or results. They may go through the

motions and leave feeling that while a good conversation might have occurred, it did not change

things much or enough. On the other hand, the story of deliberative technology is that co-

production of the process occurs regardless of whether it is explicitly intended, in the sense that

the facilitator never maintains complete control of the technology. By definition, all

participatory processes are, dependent upon what participants in the process bring, what they

share, and how they respond to the resources the facilitator aims to deploy and other potential

resources in the context. Other scholars have attended to the influence of context on decision-

making, of course. In fact, Bryson (2011) sees settings as holding “deliberative pathways”

28

implying that a direction merely needs to be chosen and followed informed by proper design.

Yet, our analysis stresses that technology is enacted in quite different ways depending upon the

interaction of the setting, the way resource are assembled and enacted, and actions of

participants.

In the HIV/AIDS case, for example, the hosts demonstrated high competence, designing

a co-produced process that could have supported the movement towards field-based systems

change. But deliberative technology meant to unleash participants’ agency and joint problem-

solving ability for field redesign did not do so. The technology could not neutralize the power

dynamics present among participants, differences founded on racial and positional authority over

funding. That circumstance created a conundrum for the callers and hosts, who had meant to

facilitate an inclusive, co-productive environment. The Resilient Regions case had different

results where the deliberative technology was actually co-produced among participants with

divergent ideologies. In that case, the co-productive technology led to a shared understanding of

redesign and was captured in the formal sustainability plan. Our analysis of these cases

illustrates how the consequences of a deliberative resource such as a technique are certainly

influenced by how a facilitator deploys it, but its consequences also lie in how participants pick it

up.

This is the dynamic illustrated in Figure 2, which visually represents the indeterminate

influence of given resources, the facilitator, the participants, or other features of the context. This

in-depth analysis suggests a generalizable process of deliberative technology. Facilitators draw

upon and bring into use deliberative resources, such as engagement techniques, material objects,

and conceptual frameworks. Yet, the results of a particular deliberative project are also directly

shaped by the actions of participants, namely how they react to, understand, and engage with

29

what facilitators offer. Deliberative technology is dynamic and emergent, determined by the

contextual application of resources and the sense making of those events by facilitators and

participants.

Seen in this way, participatory decision-processes – be they intentionally deliberative or

co-productive, or not - have two types of important outcomes. First, they can affect substantive

decisions and hone public or private investment in appropriate ways to issues, such as local

government services, HIV/AIDs programs, or economic development. These types of outcomes

are what often motivate public and nonprofit leaders to invest in participatory processes of

various types when they are confronting complex issues and needs to be more effective and

accountable to others. Second, they constitute and influence participants’ and facilitators’ own

sense of agency in the decision process and outcomes (Arnstein 1969, Quick and Feldman 2011).

Conclusion

We opened the paper by pointing to a need for more research on how democratic

decision-making is enacted, to explore the gaps between expectations and results. When

participation processes fall short of ideal implementation or results, it may be hard to identify the

cause of the challenge. Was the engagement technique poorly matched to the problem or setting?

Did the facilitator possess the requisite skills? Were the participants engaged in the process and

resulting decision? This analysis showcases that the problem can rarely be pinpointed so

narrowly, which holds a number of implications for the theory and practice of deliberation.

Theoretically, we have created ways to talk about the design and process of deliberative

experiences, exploring what actually transpires in the course of events leading up to results.

Leveraging a broadened concept of technology from organizational studies, we draw attention to

30

choices made by facilitators, including engagement techniques, material objects, and conceptual

frameworks, and how they are brought into use as resources in the participatory process. Yet

resourcing change and creating actual results also depends upon how participants respond.

Regardless of whether they are explicitly intended to involve participants in co-producing the

decision-making process and results, deliberative technologies de-center facilitators’ authority

because of the influence of all participants in the assembly and enactment of the technology.

Deliberative technologies reflect practice choices assembled in a particular project, once or over

an extended period of time, by the facilitators and participants. Theoretically probing this

concept has yielded important insights, given that the world is now enabled with infinite

potential approaches and resources for participatory decision-making in governance. Our

examination of the Art of Hosting, as merely one of those approaches, is not a silver bullet for

accomplishing deliberation or co-production. Like any approach, it is not fixed in its

implementation or consequences.

Practically, this paper suggests that those who design and facilitate participatory

processes may be focusing their attention on the wrong things, if they are stressing selecting

techniques or placing too much faith in design choices that align potential resources for the

process, the settings, and the purpose (Bryson et al. 2013). To be clear, this paper does not

contradict existing understandings that there are many choices available for designing processes.

Instead it complements and advances that scholarship by showcasing the complex, co-productive

enactments of deliberative technologies. Design actions are valuable and necessary. But if

deliberative design is re-conceptualized as deliberative technology, we can more clearly see the

importance of implementation. Bringing deliberative resources into use and engaging

participants’ in co-producing what unfolds is essential to generating desired results. Said another

31

way, designing, executing, documenting, and following up on deliberative processes involve a

myriad of practical choices. Effective practice does not require flawless execution of a particular

technique or complete fidelity to a particular model. Rather, it requires using contextual

knowledge to inform strategic thinking, acting and learning during implementation of the process

in that setting.

REFERENCES

Baldwin, Christina, and Ann Linnea. 2010. The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Adcock, Robert and David Collier. 2001. Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research. American Political Science Review 95: 529-546.

Block, Peter. 2009. Community: The Structure of Belonging. New York: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Bovaird, Tony. 2007. “Beyond Engagement and Participation: User and Community Co-production of Public Services.” Public Administration Review 67 (5): 846-60.

Brown, Juanita, and David Isaacs. 2005. The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Bryson, John, Kathryn Quick, Carissa Schively Slotterback, and Barbara Crosby. 2013. “Designing Public Participation Processes.” Public Administration Review 73 (1): 23-34.

Bryson, John M. 2011. Strategic Planning for Public And Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement. 4th Ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Cooperrider, David and Diana Whitney. 2000. Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Creighton, James L. 2005. The Public Participation Handbook: Making Better Decisions through Citizen Involvement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Curato, Nicole, Simon Niemeyer, and John S. Dryzek. 2013. "Appreciative and Contestatory Inquiry in Deliberative Forums: Can Group Hugs Be Dangerous?" Critical Policy Studies ahead-of-print: 1-17.

Daft, Richard. 2006. Organizational Theory and Design. Ninth edition. Boston: South-Western Denhardt, Robert B., and Janet Vinzant Denhardt. 2000. "The New Public Service: Serving

Rather than Steering." Public Administration Review 60 (6): 549-559. Diamond, Larry. 2010. "Liberation Technology." Journal of Democracy 21 (3): 69-83.

32

Evans-Cowley, Jennifer, and Justin Hollander. 2010. "The New Generation of Public Participation: Internet-Based Participation Tools." Planning, Practice & Research 25 (3): 397-408.

Feldman, Martha S. 2004. “Resources in Emerging Structures and Processes of Change.” Organization Science 15 (3): 295-309.

Feldman, Martha S. and Anne M. Khademian. 2007. “The Role of the Public Manager in Inclusion: Creating Communities of Participation.” Governance 20 (2): 305-324.

Feldman, Martha S. and Kathryn S. Quick. 2009. “Generating Resources and Energizing Frameworks through Inclusive Public Management.” International Public Management Journal 12 (2): 137-71.

Fortun, Kim. 2009. “Advocacy, ethnography, and complex systems.” In Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders. University of Chicago Press, 1-24.

Fung, Archon. 2006. “Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance.” Public Administration Review 66 (S1): 66-75.

Gastil, John and James P. Dillard. 2006. “Increasing Political Sophistication through Public Deliberation.” Political Communication 16 (1): 3-23.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic. Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration.

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Girard, Monique, and David Stark. 2007. “Socio-technologies of Assembly: Sense Making and

Demonstration in Rebuilding Lower Manhattan.” In Governance and Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government, ed. Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and David Lazer David. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 145-176.

Glaser, Barney G. and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.

Gutmann, Amy and Dennis Thompson. 2004. Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Hasenfeld, Yeheskel. 1983. Human Service Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Holman, Peg, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady. 2007. The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Howard-Grenville, Jennifer A. 2007. “Developing Issue-selling Effectiveness over Time: Issue Selling as Resourcing.” Organization Science 18 (4): 560-577.

Jacobs, Lawrence R., Fay Lomax Cook, and Michael Delli Carpini. 2009. Talking Together: Public Deliberation and Political Participation in America. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Kaner, Sam. 2007. Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. Second edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

33

Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. London: Oxford University Press.

Lee, Caroline W. 2011. “Five Assumptions Academics Make about Public Deliberation, and Why They Deserve Rethinking.” Journal of Public Deliberation 7 (1): 1-48.

Lin, Ann Chih. 1998. Bridging positivist and interpretivist approaches to qualitative methods. Policy Studies Journal, 26: 162-180.

Macintosh, Ann and Angus Whyte. 2008. “Towards an Evaluation Framework for eParticipation.” Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy 2 (1): 16-30.

Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. “On the Idea that Political Participation Makes Better Citizens.” In Citizen Competence and Democratic Institutions, ed. S. L. Elkin and K.E. Soltan. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 291-326.

Mansbridge, Jane, Janette Hartz-Karp, Matthew Amengual, and John Gastil. 2006. "Norms of Deliberation: An Inductive Study." Journal of Public Deliberation 2 (1): 1-47.

Marcus, George E. 1998. Ethnography through Thick and Thin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univeristy Press.

Nabatchi, Tina; John Gastil, Michael Weiksner, and Matt Leighninger, eds. 2012. Democracy in Motion: Evaluating the Practice and Impact of Deliberative Civic Engagement. New York: Oxford University Press.

O’Leary, Rosemary, Tina Nabatchi, and Lisa Bingham. 2005. "Assessing and Improving Conflict Resolution in Multiparty Environmental Negotiations."International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior 8 (2): 175.

Orlikowski, Wanda J. 1992. "The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations." Organization Science 3 (3): 398-427.

Orlikowski, Wanda J. 2010. “Engaging Practice in Research: Phenomenon, Perspective, and Philosophy.” In Damon Golsorkhi, Linda Rouleau, David Seidl, and Eero Vaara (eds.) The Cambridge Handbook on Strategy as Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 23-33.

Owen, Harrison. 1997. Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Pfister, Damien S., and Getachew Dinku Godana. 2012. "Deliberation Technology." Journal of Public Deliberation 8 (1): 10.

Quick, Kathryn and Martha Feldman. 2011. “Distinguishing Participation and Inclusion.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 31 (3): 272-290.

Reckwitz, Andreas. 2002. “Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing." European Journal of Social Theory 5 (2): 243-63.

Roberts, Nancy. 2004. “Public Deliberation in an Age of Direct Citizen Participation.” American Review of Public Administration 34 (4): 315-353.

Sandfort, Jodi, 2013. “Analyzing the Practice of Nonprofit Advocacy: Comparing Two Human Services Networks.” Nonprofits and advocacy: Engaging community and government in

34

an era of retrenchment, ed. Robert Peckham and Steven Smith. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Sandfort, Jodi. 2010. Human service organizational technology. In Human Services as Complex Organizations, ed. Yeheskel Hasenfeld. 2nd ed. New York: Sage, 269-290.

Schwartz-Shea, Peregine, and Dvora Yanow. 2013. Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes. New York: Routledge.

Schwarz, Roger. 2002. The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Slotterback, Carissa Schively. 2011. “Planners’ Perspectives on Using Technology in Participatory Processes.” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 38 (3): 468–485.

Sproull, Lee S., and Paul S. Goodman. 1990. Technology and Organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Success Works. 2011. Evaluation of the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter, 2009-2011. Carlton, Victoria: Success Works.

Thomas, John Clayton. 2012. Citizen, Customer, Partner: Engaging the Public in Public Management. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Tuckman, Bruce. 1965. “Developmental sequence in small groups.” Psychological Bulletin 63 (6): 384–399.

Wheatley, Margaret and Deborah Frieze. 2011. Walk out, Walk on: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring to Live the Future Now. New York: BK Currents.

Wheatley, Margaret. 2006. Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. Third edition. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Young, Iris Marion. 2002. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

36

Figure 1: Deliberative Resources Frequently Employed in the Art of Hosting