We offer the following collections to foster greater understanding about democracy: its rich and contested history, the different ways it can be organised, its core practices (e.g., listening), its promise and pitfalls, the theories and arguments.
Please contact us if you would like to suggest additional resources or if you would like to write a review.
Podcasts
Past Present Future by David Runciman
The Rest is Politics by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart
Know you enemy by Matthew Sitman
Beyond Consultation. By BusinessLab, interviews with New Zealanders by Paul McGregor
Real Democracy Now! Produced by and interviews by Nivek Thompson
Facilitating Public Deliberations. Produced by Nivek Thompson, interviews by Lyn Carson
Books with a New Zealand focus or written by New Zealanders
Staging democracy: The political work of live performance
Emily Beausoleil (2023), De Gruyter
Love you: Public policy for intergenerational wellbeing
Girol Karacaoglu (2021), Tuwhiti
Government for the Public Good: The Surprising Science of Large-Scale Collective Action
Max Rashbrooke (2018), Bridget Williams Books
Kōrero Tahi: Talking Together
Joan Metge (2001), Auckland University Press
International books
The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs
David Runciman (2023), Profile
Free and equal: what would a fair society look like?
Daniel Chandler (2023), Penguin UK.
Facilitating Deliberation: A Practical Guide
Kimbra White, Nicole Hunter and Keith Greaves (2022), MosaicLab
Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us
Jon Alexander (2022), Canterbury Press
Play and the City: How to Create Places and Spaces To Help Us Thrive
Alex Bonham (2021), Hachette Australia
The A, B & C of democracy
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis & Kyle Redman (2021), Carlow Books, Carlton, Victoria
If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future
Jill Lepore (2020), Hachette UK
The plot against America (Fiction)
Philip Roth (2020), Vintage
Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back into Politics
John Gastil and Katherine Knobloch (2020), Oxford University Press
Open Democracy : Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century
Hélène Landemore (2020), Princeton University Press
How democracy ends
David Runciman (2018), Profile Books, London
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
Kate Haworth (2017), Chelsea Green publishing
Democracy When the People Are Thinking: Revitalizing Our Politics Through Public Deliberation
James S. Fishkin, Oxford University Press
Against elections: The case for democracy
David van Reybrouck (2016), The Bodley Head, London
Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many
Hélène Landemore (2012), Princeton University Press
Guidebook to Direct Democracy in Switzerland and Beyond
Bruno Kaufmann, Rolf Büchi, Nadja Braun (2010), Initiative & Referendum Institute (IRI) Europe
The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
David Salsburg (2002), Henry Holt
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
Christopher Lasch (1996), W. W. Norton & Company
The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening
Gemma Corradi Fiumara (1990), Routledge
NZ papers and reports
He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu mō Aotearoa
The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Reform (2016)
International papers and reports
Kept Alive for Thirty Days
Stefan Collini’s London Review of Books review of Jerry Muller’s ‘The Tyranny of Metrics’ and James Wilsdon’s ‘The Metric Tide’.
An introduction to deliberative democracy for members of parliament. Westminster Fund for Democracy (2021)
Good practice principles for deliberative processes for public decision making. OECD (2020)
Enabling national initiatives to take democracy beyond elections
UN Democracy Fund & The newDemocracy Foundation (2019)
Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave
OECD (2020)
Tyranny of structureless
Jo Freeman
Leverage points: Place to intervene in a system
Donella Meadows
NZ websites
Te Reo o Ngā Tāngata: The People Speak
A grassroots organisation working towards a democratic, Te Tiriti based and climate resilient Aotearoa. Working in collaboration with Ngāti Toa Rangatira to co-design the Porirua Climate Assembly.
Open Government Partnership NZ
The NZ government’s OGP website that includes National Action Plans and details about the creation and implementation of them.
Future Times
For three decades from 1982, the New Zealand Futures Trust led the development of Futures Thinking in New Zealand. This website is a repository of the its core work.
Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures
A multi-disciplinary institute based at the University of Auckland that focuses on issues on which robust evidence can and must inform societal policy decisions over the middle and long term, and on the complex conversations needed to do this.
New Zealand Fabian Society
An independent membership-based policy forum that supports education and debate on progressive policy priorities by providing quality events, publications and research.
Inspiring Communities
A virtual organisation consisting of people from all over the country who have skills, expertise and experience in community-led development approaches to problems and issues.
Inspiring Stories
A Kiwi charity founded with a bold vision to back young people to change the world.
Degrowth Aotearoa
Working to enable collective wellbeing within ecological limits.
International websites
DemocracyNext
An international non-profit, non-partisan research and action institute focused on building new institutions for the next democratic paradigm of citizen participation, representation, and deliberation.
Participedia
A global crowdsourcing platform for researchers, activists, practitioners, and anyone interested in public participation and democratic innovations.
Open Government Partnership
An international organisation of reformers inside and outside of government working to transform how government serves its citizens.
Kettering Foundation
A US nonprofit cooperative research foundation focused on the perspective of citizens and what people can do collectively to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation.
National Issues Forums Institute
A US network for everyone interested in the practice of small group deliberation.
MASS LBP
Leading deliberative engagement consultancy in Canada. Have facilitated over 45 Reference Panels and Citizens’ Assemblies.
The newDemocracy Foundation
An Australian independent, non-partisan research and development organisation that aims to discover, develop, demonstrate, and promote complementary alternatives to representative democracy which will restore trust in public decision making.
G1000 Netherlands and G1000 Belgium
Large-scale representative deliberative process led by the community rather than central or local government.
Involve
The UK’s leading public participation charity on a mission to put people at the heart of decision-making.
Deliberative Democracy Lab
A US research institute focused on democracy and public opinion obtained through Deliberative Polling®. Formerly known as Stanford University’s Center for Deliberative Democracy.
World Future Studies Federation
An international organisation and peak body for future studies that offers UNESCO scholarships.
The Computational Democracy Project
A nonprofit US organisation that designs, engineers and maintains Polis, an open source, real-time system for gathering, analysing and understanding what large groups of people think in their own words, enabled by advanced statistics and machine learning.
Healthy Democracy
A US-based nonpartisan nonprofit that designs and coordinates innovative deliberative democracy programmes including the Citizens’ Initiative Review.
Participatory Budgeting Project
A US-based organisation that empowers people to use participatory budgeting processes that deepen democracy, build stronger communities, and make public budgets more equitable and effective.
Resilience
A US-based organisation aims to support building community resilience in a world of multiple emerging challenges.
PlayDecide
Card games for simple, respectful and fact-based group discussion and deliberation.
What Works Wellbeing
The UK’s independent body for wellbeing evidence, policy and practice.
The Power Cube
A resource for understanding power relations in efforts to bring about social change.
