Papers & Reviews by Timothy J Shaffer
Striving for Grassroots Engagement and Social Justice through Cooperative Extension, 2022
Journal of Public Affairs Education, 2022
The widening cracks in the foundations of American democracy are leading to appeals for higher ed... more The widening cracks in the foundations of American democracy are leading to appeals for higher educational institutions generally, and public affairs programs specifically, to offer more courses on civil discourse. In this paper, we conduct a curriculum scan to evaluate the extent to which public affairs programs have answered these calls at the undergraduate level. The findings indicate that civil discoursethemed courses are essentially absent in the largest undergraduate public affairs programs, leaving the calls woefully unanswered. Then, analyzing students' pre-post survey responses from a new course that offered content on the intersection of civil discourse and public policy making, we find that a civil discourse-themed course can simultaneously answer the calls and ensure that students meet the objectives of baccalaureate public affairs education recommended by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. The results are encouraging for public affairs education and democratic governance alike.
Higher Education Exchange, 2021
Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 2021
Communication Education, 2021
The Practice of Government Public Relations, 2021
What is the relationship between government officials and broader publics when it comes to public... more What is the relationship between government officials and broader publics when it comes to public engagement? What does it look like for public administrators to not only share important public information with citizens, but also to engage them through decision-making processes through democratic processes? What, fundamentally, is the role of government if we take seriously the idea of relations as a central tenet of governance? This chapter focuses on government agencies that are increasingly using more participatory and collaborative public engagement approaches and strategies, helping to create conditions for greater transparency and accountability and meaningful engagement. It explores the idea of public administration through the concept of “democratic professionals” and the idea of what David Mathews of the Kettering Foundation calls democratic strategy of governance with citizens. However, not all attempts to democratize decision-making through collaborative and participatory process have embodied the ideas set forth by many champions of collaborative governance. For this reason, there needs to be considerable intentionality about how public administrators create processes and engage citizens to ensure public engagement is more than a popular phrase attached to experiences that do little to engage people around common problems. A challenge is that many in public administration have not been trained in robust public engagement models that move beyond technocratic approaches to complex problems.
Civility in the 2018 U.S. Senate Debates: , 2020
Journal of Public Deliberation, 2019
This essay offers a response to the special issue essays. It emphasizes that town meetings are a ... more This essay offers a response to the special issue essays. It emphasizes that town meetings are a site for governance and have implications for contemporary deliberative practices.
Community Development, 2019
The field of community development is challenged in the current political culture where polarizat... more The field of community development is challenged in the current political culture where polarization and incivility impact democratic ideals and practices. The role of the community development practitioner in such an environment is to approach one’s work as a civic professional, using technical expertise in public-regarding ways to cultivate opportunities for discussion across lines of difference. Foundational and functional competencies for community development include many important characteristics, but they do not include explicit language addressing political polarization. The article suggests looking to educational and professional development programs in the field of dialogue and deliberation as a way to further develop and refine these competencies.
Journal of Radio & Audio Media, 2019
This article focuses on the use of radio broadcasts as resources for those organizing and conveni... more This article focuses on the use of radio broadcasts as resources for those organizing and convening face-to-face discussion groups in rural communities across the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. Led by the United States Department of Agriculture, small group discussions took place with leadership coming from Cooperative Extension agents from land-grant universities. As public affairs shows were being carried on the major commercial radio channels, the USDA discussion project utilized radio broadcasts to introduce people to the methods of conducting group discussions. The article focuses on the national efforts of the USDA as well as localized attempts to utilize radio broadcasts in the service of democratic discussion, focusing on one of the most robust examples of a land-grant university—the University of Wisconsin-Madison—utilizing technology for democratic discussion in rural communities across the state. It notes shortcomings and challenges, as well as identifying the critical role that radio played in helping citizens and communities begin to think about complex public problems through the use of new technologies.
Cornell University PhD Dissertation, 2014
Journal of Public Deliberation, 2019
For the last five years, we have had the honor of serving as editors of the Journal of Public Del... more For the last five years, we have had the honor of serving as editors of the Journal of Public Deliberation. This issue marks the end of our editorial tenure, and we take this opportunity to both look back and think ahead. In this brief essay, we reflect on what we’ve seen during our time as editors. We begin by describing three important special issues that reflect the state of our field, then provide some details about how we have facilitated JPD’s growth over the past five years, including publication statistics and article download rates. We conclude by discussing where the journal is now and what we anticipate for its future.
Journal of Public Deliberation, 2018
This article introduces the special issue on Deliberative Democracy in an Era of Authoritarianism... more This article introduces the special issue on Deliberative Democracy in an Era of Authoritarianism. The essay highlights the relationship between authoritarianism and democracy, and discusses concerns about the current rise in authoritarianism in political systems. It poses questions about how deliberative scholars and practitioners should respond to authoritarian political contexts and how deliberation should relate to more activist forms of civic engagement. Finally, it previews the articles in the special issue and urges future work in the field to take up ideas, questions, and challenges posed by these essays.
For full special issue, see https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol14/iss2/.
The Good Society, 2017
This article focuses on the theoretical and conceptual issues that reside at the intersection of ... more This article focuses on the theoretical and conceptual issues that reside at the intersection of deliberation and action. Looking at the Antigonish Movement and the USDA's farmer discussion groups and schools of philosophy in the 1930s and 1940s, the article identifies salient points about the ways in which institutional leaders developed programs that attended to concerns about the role of facts, values, and strategies by embedding deliberative talk within collaborative efforts through education and community development initiatives.
Deliberation. Democracy. Our Power in Diversity, 2019
Shaffer, T. J. (2019). Education Through a Deliberative Democratic Lens. In Y. Pylynskyi & O. Kop... more Shaffer, T. J. (2019). Education Through a Deliberative Democratic Lens. In Y. Pylynskyi & O. Kopylenko (Eds.), Decentralisation. Deliberation. Democracy. Our Power in Diversity (Vol. 1, pp. 36-55). Kyiv, Ukrain: Legislation Institute of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
This article introduces the special "State of the Field" issue of the Journal of Public Deliberat... more This article introduces the special "State of the Field" issue of the Journal of Public Deliberation. The essay highlights some of the key tensions that our field is wrestling with at the moment, and advocates that we think carefully about the terms we use to describe our work. It previews the articles in this special issue and urges future work in the field to take up the ideas, questions, and challenges posed by these essays.
See the full special issue at: http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol10/iss1/
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2017
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Papers & Reviews by Timothy J Shaffer
For full special issue, see https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol14/iss2/.
See the full special issue at: http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol10/iss1/
For full special issue, see https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol14/iss2/.
See the full special issue at: http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol10/iss1/
At the most basic level, this book describes collaborative and relational work to engage with others and co-create meaning. Specifically, dialogue and deliberation are processes in which a diverse group of people moves toward making a collective decision on a difficult public issue.
This primer offers a blueprint for achieving the civic mission of higher education by incorporating dialogue and deliberation into learning at colleges and universities. It opens by providing a conceptual framework, with leading voices in the dialogue and deliberation field providing insights on issues pertinent to college campuses, from free speech and academic freedom to neutrality and the role of deliberation in civic engagement. Subsequent sections describe a diverse range of methods and approaches used by several organizations that pioneered and sustained deliberative practices; outline some of the many ways in which educators and institutions are using dialogue and deliberation in curricular, co-curricular, and community spaces, including venues such as student centers, academic libraries, and residence halls. All of the chapters, including a Resource Section, provide readers with a starting point for conceptualizing and implementing their own deliberation and dialogue initiatives.
This book, intended for all educators who are concerned about democracy, imparts the power and impact of public talk, offers the insights and experiences of leading practitioners, and provides the grounding to adopt or adapt the models in their own settings to create educative spaces and experiences that are humanizing, authentic, and productive. It is an important resource for campus leaders, student affairs practitioners, librarians, and centers of institutional diversity, community engagement, teaching excellence and service-learning, as well as faculty, particularly those in the fields of communication studies, education, and political science.
This book was undertaken as a response to these problems. It presents and develops a more robust discussion of what civility is, why it matters, what factors might contribute to it, and what its consequences are for democratic life. The authors included here pursue three major questions: Is the state of American political discourse today really that bad, compared to prior eras; what lessons about civility can we draw from the 2016 election; and how have changes in technology such as the development of online news and other means of mediated communication changed the nature of our discourse?
This book seeks to develop a coherent, civil conversation between divergent contemporary perspectives in political science, communications, history, sociology, and philosophy. This multidisciplinary approach helps to reflect on challenges to civil discourse, define civility, and identify its consequences for democratic life in a digital age. In this accessible text, an all-star cast of contributors tills the earth in which future discussion on civility will be planted.
This book was undertaken as a response to these problems. It presents and develops a more robust discussion of what civility is, why it matters, what factors might contribute to it, and what its consequences are for democratic life. The authors included here pursue three major questions: Is the state of American political discourse today really that bad, compared to prior eras; what lessons about civility can we draw from the 2016 election; and how have changes in technology such as the development of online news and other means of mediated communication changed the nature of our discourse?
This book seeks to develop a coherent, civil conversation between divergent contemporary perspectives in political science, communications, history, sociology, and philosophy. This multidisciplinary approach helps to reflect on challenges to civil discourse, define civility, and identify its consequences for democratic life in a digital age. In this accessible text, an all-star cast of contributors tills the earth in which future discussion on civility will be planted.
Through eight richly-detailed oral histories, this book helps to open our imagination to the possibilities for professionals to make constructive contributions to the task of making democracy work as it should. The first-hand stories of public work in these oral histories are told by professionals from six different states who either chose or were invited to jump into civic life as active participants. They help us see what it means and takes to be a “citizen professional” who respects and supports the capacities, intelligence, expertise, and agency of others.
Through eight richly-detailed oral histories, this book helps to open our imagination to the possibilities for professionals to make constructive contributions to the task of making democracy work as it should. The first-hand stories of public work in these oral histories are told by professionals from six different states who either chose or were invited to jump into civic life as active participants. They help us see what it means and takes to be a “citizen professional” who respects and supports the capacities, intelligence, expertise, and agency of others.
On the other hand, the planet’s population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, demands for food—and the water, land, and energy necessary to produce this food— is likely to increase with pressing urgency. New farming strategies, technologies, ideas, and policies are also likely to emerge to address the challenges of farming for the future. Many suggest that we should focus on the pressing need for efficiency and not spend too much time lamenting a past era of agriculture.
These challenges invite us to wonder: What will the future of agriculture and rural life look like? What do we want it to look like? Which values inform our hopes for the future?
Shaffer is an assistant professor in communication studies at Kansas State University, assistant director of the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy, and principal research specialist at the National Institute for Civil Discourse. He is the editor of a new book called A Crisis of Civility? Political Discourse and its Discontents.