New at Inside Public Judgment: Starting Where the Public Starts

Friends know that at the Kettering Foundation we recently started a new blog called Inside Public Judgment, devoted to sharing what we are learning about framing issues for public deliberation — a behind-the-scenes look at various aspects of developing issue guides. My latest piece is posted, which outlines some of the false starts we made as we began development of a recent popular issue guide called Political Fix: How do we get American Politics Back on Track?

An excerpt from the post:

This guide went through a longer evolution than most, as we at Kettering tried to make sure we fulfilled one of the key things we have learned about framing issues for public deliberation: it is critical to start where the public starts.

For many issues, this is easier said than done. The more we know (or learn) about a particular topic, often the more expert-driven our views become about what would make a good solution. This is natural. In the case of Political Fix, we initially began with a slightly different topic in mind: money in politics.  Because of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and the record amounts of money spent in recent elections, we have heard pundits discussing money in politics in op-eds and on Sunday morning talk shows for some time. But when we held research forums with ordinary citizens to see how they talked about the issue, we discovered two important things:

• People said they see the issue of “money in politics” as much broader than simply questions about campaign finance—they believe that limiting the conversation in this way leaves too much untouched. They are sophisticated enough to believe that money plays a part throughout the current political system.
• Just as important, people said that there are more fundamental problems in our political system than just money and power. They were interested in a conversation that goes beyond money and addresses more basic questions.

It was clear, in looking at these results, that an issue guide about the broader problem of American politics in general—and what to do to fix its current ills—could be widely useful to citizens.

Read the full post here, which describes more about the framework we ultimately developed.