On page 39 Ms. Noveck describes the differences between deliberative and collaborative democracy… which both exist in the realm of participatory democracy and are group-based. She also suggests that the differences are more pronounced on the Internet and that collaboration has become so much easier because of technology.
It is interesting to reflect on these differences and then think back to the question I originally posed – Which public education problems could be better resolved through collaboration? Which would not?
Deliberative democracy requires diverse viewpoints and an agenda for orderly discussion. It measures its success on equality of inputs and procedural uniformity, and it emphasizes self-expression. It presents a problem on an abstract level before implementing a solution (or discusses the solution after the fact) and is focused on discovering the general will or forming opinions or consensus.
Collaborative democracy requires both diverse viewpoints AND diverse skills and breaks down a problem into component parts that can then be assigned to citizens and administrators. It measures its success on the effectiveness of decision-making and outputs, and along the way, offers a number of opportunities for participation to create a culture of participation and improve the quality of decision-making. Collaboration emphasizes participation of people who have “expertise” (and/or interest) in the subject in gathering information, evaluating and measuring the information, and developing specific solutions for implementation.
