Tom Atlee and others have argued persuasively that our current democratic processes need to evolve to reflect the holistic worldview emerging from advances in both the natural and social sciences over the past century and to make our democracies more truly representative of the voice of the people. As Atlee says, truly participatory democracies that tap into the collective intelligence of the people would do more than measure opinion polls or simple majority votes. They would devise processes that, firstly, built the capacity of the whole community or society to reflect on itself and, secondly, elicited the collective wisdom of the whole for the benefit the whole. Below we list a number of innovative democratic approaches that invite a deeper level of participation from ordinary citizens in the governance of their communities.

Citizen Deliberative Councils

Citizen Deliberative Council (CDC) is an umbrella term to describe "a temporary council of citizens convened to deliberate about public concerns (either about a specific issue or the general state of the community and its future) and to provide guidance for officials and the public. Although "citizen deliberation" happens in many forms, a Citizen Deliberative Council is a special form of deliberation structured and convened to inform officials and the public about what The People as a whole really want." (Tom Atlee, http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-CDCs.html). The fundamental purpose of CDCs, then, is to bring the collective wisdom of the community into the formal structures of politics and governance.

Examples of types of CDCs include:

·       citizen juries: groups of 10-20 people who select and cross-examine diverse experts on an issue and then present recommendations to a convening authority (see www.jefferson-center.org/citizens_jury.htm);

·       citizen consensus councils: CDCs which include a process of facilitation through which the council achieves consensus, demanding that participants work through the differences between diverse perspectives and thus conferring a special legitimacy to the outcome (see www.co-intelligence.org/P-citizenCC.html).;

·       neighborhood councils: Groups of ordinary citizens who are independent from government but whose recommendations affect local and city-wide decision-making. See www.lacityneighborhoods.com for an example. The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment in LA holds the wonderful vision "to promote public participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs by creating, nurturing, and supporting a citywide system of grass-roots, independent, and participatory neighborhood councils."

For a number of examples of where CDCs have been applied in actual communities, see Tom Atlee's article on CDCs at www.co-intelligence.org/P-CDCs.html or get his excellent book Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to create a world that works for all. 2003. The Writer's Collective.

Wisdom Councils (www.wisedemocracy.org)

The Wisdom Council is a type of CDC developed by Jim Rough, creator of the Dynamic Facilitation process. The idea is to form small groups of randomly selected people every quarter to deliberate about a public issue or set of issues of interest to them. The groups are dynamically facilitated to reach consensus, and their conclusions are reported to the public as a "Statement of the People" via television and print media. The Wisdom Council does not give the small groups any official power but uses them to establish a whole-system dialogue among everyone. For more details about this approach, see Jim Rough's article on Wisdom Councils at www.wisedemocracy.org/breakthrough/WisdomCouncil.html or his book Society's Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All People. 2002. Authorhouse.

Steward Councils

"Steward Councils" are what we are calling the practice of bringing together community leaders who hold (or are willing to hold) a big picture, systems view of their communities for regular quality dialogues in a circle format.

America Speaks - 21st Century Town Meeting (www.americaspeaks.org)

AmericaSpeaks organizes large-scale forums engaging thousands of citizens to deliberate on public issues and provide input to shape government policies. Diverse groups of citizens participate in round-table discussions (10-12 per table) deliberating in depth with the aid of a trained facilitator about key community issues. Through integrating lap-top computer and keypad polling technologies individual table discussions are synthesized into whole system recommendations that reflect the collective wisdom of all participants. Decision-makers are often included as regular participants.