Q. Why is SoCoDesign Studio undertaking a project in health and wellness deliberation? Who has a stake in this deliberation?
A. The subject area reflects a civic need to anticipate the future. The stakeholders include health and wellness service providers, consumers, and parties that can either enhance or impede the link between service providers and service consumers.

Q. What is the expected outcome that will make this effort a legitimate investment of stakeholders' time?
A. The "anticipation" of the community for the needs of the future will be received and deeply considered by policy makers at the state and at the national level. Policies informed in measure by well structured citizen deliberations have improved prospects of better serving those citizens.



"... it is when citizens engage in public deliberations about matters of public concern that they realize the democratic values of participation, public freedom, and civic responsibility." AND "... theorists of civil society and deliberative democracy believe that advancing democratic ideals today cannot rest on "revolutionary" changes subjecting all aspects of public life to grassroots democratic decision-making." AND "... democratic citizens who deliberate about public issues and thereby contribute to informed public opinion which then influences the state. In this view, the process of public deliberation is the key to achieving democratic participation and legitimacy in existing liberal representative systems." AND "Round tables reflect one of a multitude of different ways that citizens can organize themselves and exercise their freedom to participate in the public sphere. Far from being undemocratic, Round tables are spaces for the self-organization of civil society." "Yet their solutions acquire political effectiveness only insofar as the round table presents convincing arguments." __ Christiane Olivo

The Practical Problems of Bridging Civil Society and the State: A Study of Round Tables in Eastern Germany Polity Dec, 1998

"While the round table model of citizen participation and deliberation offers many advantages from the perspective of fostering deliberative democracy, it is not without problems. These show up particularly clearly in two areas, in their organization within civil society and in their relation to state authorities. The very first question that arises is who decides which actors and/or groups are invited to a round table? The goal of completeness, i.e., including every affected person or group, cannot be met in all situations, because round table organizers work from imperfect information about which citizens or groups might be interested in, or affected by, a particular situation. The organizers also have their own biases, and these affect who gets invited. Relatedly, not all citizens are interested in participating at round tables, even if they are invited to do so." (pg 8)

"Round table organizers and participants must also deal with the problem of access to the state. Small, informal round tables are often marginalized politically, unable to gain much publicity or recognition for their work, even from fellow citizens. Such political marginalization can hinder citizens' motivation to continue participating at round tables." AND "... the particular topic addressed by a round table often determines what kind of media attention it can attract. ... Publicity is not always enough to secure the success of a round table, however. The examples of round tables that ultimately failed despite significant publicity show that lack of access to the state significantly reduces citizens' motivation to continue participating at round tables." (pg 9)

"... the round table should not be a parallel government to the city parliament nor a parallel power to the city executive, but rather should exercise a consulting function as a representative of large and small organizations, most of which are not represented in the city parliament." AND "... examples of failed round tables [show] that resistance from the state sphere can be devastating to the work of round tables. Both cases indicate that most resistance came from parliamentary bodies, whose members perceive round tables as unelected, and hence undemocratic, competition. However, most round table participants do not expect or claim decision-making powers. What they want is a chance to be heard, because they believe that the power politics of legislative bodies does not always produce the best policy outcomes." (pg 11)

"One of the most important ways for round tables to be heard, i.e., to connect with the state, is through a mediating person who has an official capacity as a member of the state administration or parliament and participates at the round table. This kind of connection provides direct, face-to-face contact between actors from the state and citizens in civil society. It makes processes of state decision-making and official government concerns more transparent to citizens in civil society and also provides an opportunity for state actors to hear about wide-ranging opinions of citizens."

"... a non-institutionalized form of citizen deliberation, relying solely on informal processes of public opinion formation and influencing the state through publicity, is insufficient to advance principles of robust democratic participation in contemporary liberal democracies because it often cannot produce the efficacious connection with the state necessary to motivate citizens to participate in the public spheres of civil society."