1 - 10 of 18 results for: The Dialogue of Democracy

( History 73 is 3 units; History 173 is 5 units.) This course is an introduction to the history of Mexican migration to the United States. Barraged with anti-immigrant rhetoric and calls for bigger walls and more restrictive laws, few people in the United States truly understand the historical trends that shape migratory processes, or the multifaceted role played by both US officials and employers in encouraging Mexicans to migrate north. Moreover, few have actually heard the voices and perspectives of migrants themselves. This course seeks to provide students with the opportunity to place migrants' experiences in dialogue with migratory laws as well as the knowledge to embed current understandings of Latin American migration in their meaningful historical context.

This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.

All forms of democracy require some kind of communication so people can be aware of issues and make decisions. This course looks at competing visions of what democracy should be and different notions of the role of dialogue in a democracy. Is it just campaigning or does it include deliberation? Small scale discussions or sound bites on television? Or social media? What is the role of technology in changing our democratic practices, to mobilize, to persuade, to solve public problems? This course will include readings from political theory about democratic ideals - from the American founders to J.S. Mill and the Progressives to Joseph Schumpeter and modern writers skeptical of the public will. It will also include contemporary examinations of the media and the internet to see how those practices are changing and how the ideals can or cannot be realized.

Engage with contemplative science scholars, leaders, and teachers who apply contemplative practices to cultivate the democratic promise for equality, liberty, health, and well-being. This workshop immerses students in community-based engaged learning in which the community is the people of Stanford (students, staff, faculty, alumni, retirees, patients,and members of the local community). The course includes participation in two, Saturday, in-person, half-day sessions and in several online key sessions in the Contemplation By Design Summit. See the course notes section for the names of the Summit speakers and times of the Summit sessions included in this course. Through a three-part process, students will develop skills for: translating theory into practice, engaging in dialogue with the Summit speakers, and designing a contemplative science-based community program. Pre-workshop readings and an intention paper, and a post-workshop reflection paper and group discussion provide opportunities for exploring theoretical and methodological questions encountered in the translation of contemplative science to community programming.This course provides direct experience of a community-based contemplative science program on a university campus.Scholars have pointed to the role of American colleges and universities as embodied places of societal values and aspirations, reflecting both academic traditions and heritages alongside social and scientific change and innovation.Campus communities can engender positive outcomes including skills for inter- and intra-personal personal values,emotional intelligence, and civic engagement. Collectively, these outcomes can contribute to individual and community health and well-being, and a thriving functional democracy. Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center.

This course provides an overview of the diverse cultural origins of democratic ideals and practices, their global evolution, the challenges confronting them, and innovations that can make democracy work better. The course places American democracy in a global and comparative perspective, noting the distinctive features and challenges of U.S. democracy and the wide variety of other democratic institutional forms in the world. It deals both with competing visions of what democracy might be and their actual realization around the world. A major element of the course is to consider different conceptual approaches to democracy-direct, representative, participatory, and deliberative. How do different political systems borrow from these concepts to enhance or justify their forms of governance? How are they evolving or reforming in ways that may address the current crisis of democracy and renew public faith in the efficacy and worth of democracy? Democratic institutions are subject to a living dialogue, and we intend to engage the students in these debates, at the levels of both democratic theory and ongoing democratic practice and institutional designs. In the second half of the course, we will examine innovations like Deliberative Polling and institutional reforms of electoral systems and accountability structures that could increase civic participation, reduce polarization, rein in corruption, and improve the functioning and legitimacy of democracy.

American democracy is increasingly polarized and dysfunctional. Levels of public trust in the Congress and politicians are at virtually all-time lows, and so is the ability of members of different parties to work together in Washington, D.C., and in many state capitols, to find solutions to our major public policy problems. Much is written about the growing polarization of American society, yet public opinion polling suggests that the public is not as bitterly divided as the political class.
nOne perspective on the current crisis stresses the lack of opportunities for the American public to deliberate on key issues and challenges under good conditions - where they can receive balanced and informed briefings and talk with one another face to face, away from the glare of broadcast media and social networks that only reinforce their initial points of view. 'Good' conditions also provide trained moderators to encourage and ensure mutual respect for divergent points of view. When a representative, random sample of a population - be it a city or an entire nation - is brought together in this way to deliberate, while being polled on their opinions before and after deliberation, new insights emerge about what decisions 'the people' collectively might come to if they could talk in one room together as fellow citizens. We call this innovative method of democratic dialogue and opinion formation 'Deliberative Polling.' It has been used over 100 times in over 30 countries to help register public opinion in a more democratic and constructive fashion.nThis course will first examine basic theory on deliberative democracy, with emphasis on the state of polarization in American democracy and the issues that appear to most bitterly divide the American public. Then it will study the method of Deliberative Polling and look at a number of specific instances where it has been applied to help inform public policy dialogue or decision-making. We will read studies evaluating applications of Deliberative Polling in cities and countries around the world. We will watch documentary films describing the experience with deliberative polls in several settings. We will examine in detail some of the statistical polling results from previous Deliberative Polls to determine whether and why (and to what extent) people change their opinions on policy issues as a result of the deliberative process. As hands-on experience, students will prepare briefing materials and surveys for an upcoming Deliberative Polling experiment that will be implemented by a cross-institutional deliberative democracy practicum course that is being led by Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy and the Haas Center for Public Service. They may also contribute to the planned state wide deliberation on the future of California. In addition, students will engage in their own deliberations using the Stanford Platform for Online Deliberation, which has been deployed around the world. Students will complete background reading over the summer and will write short papers during the course analyzing specific previous experiences with Deliberative Polling.

This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.

All forms of democracy require some kind of communication so people can be aware of issues and make decisions. This course looks at competing visions of what democracy should be and different notions of the role of dialogue in a democracy. Is it just campaigning or does it include deliberation? Small scale discussions or sound bites on television? Or social media? What is the role of technology in changing our democratic practices, to mobilize, to persuade, to solve public problems? This course will include readings from political theory about democratic ideals - from the American founders to J.S. Mill and the Progressives to Joseph Schumpeter and modern writers skeptical of the public will. It will also include contemporary examinations of the media and the internet to see how those practices are changing and how the ideals can or cannot be realized.

This course examines the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and engages both in a dialogue with critics. Can a democracy which emphasizes people thinking and talking together on the basis of good information be made practical in the modern age? What kinds of distortions arise when people try to discuss politics or policy together? The course draws on ideas of deliberation from Madison and Mill to Rawls and Habermas as well as criticisms from the jury literature, from the psychology of group processes and from the most recent normative and empirical literature on deliberative forums. Deliberative Polling, its applications, defenders and critics, both normative and empirical, will provide a key case for discussion.