Kettering / NIF
In the spring of 2008, the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service contracted with the Kettering Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan research organization rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research, that has promoted democratic practices for many years. WIPPS is proud to work with the Foundation in training and promoting the National Issues Forum dialogue model as a means to gather public input on issues of local and state-wide concern. (See www.nif.org for more information on the model.) The process, known as deliberative dialogue, is a hallmark of effective democratic participation.
About the Kettering Foundation
The Kettering Foundation explores ways that key political practices can be strengthened through innovations that emphasize active roles for citizens. Kettering’s research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people collectively can do to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation.
The Foundation seeks to identify and address the challenges to making democracy work as it should through interrelated program areas that focus on citizens, communities, and institutions. Kettering’s research examines what it takes for democracy to work as it should, as people shape their collective future, and explores ways that key political practices can be strengthened through innovations that emphasize active roles for citizens.
Guiding Kettering’s research are three hypotheses. Democracy requires:
- citizens who as “sovereigns” can make sound decisions about public issues
- citizens who can act together to deal with their problems, beginning in their communities
- citizens who can align the work they do with the institutions they created to serve them so that civic initiatives reinforce institutional efforts.
Chartered as an operating corporation, Kettering does not make grants. Instead, the Foundation’s staff assists an extensive network of associates that collaborate with community organizations, government agencies, researchers scholars, and citizens that become “co-learners” in a learning-based theory of change. In effect, the Foundation makes discoveries by watching people experiment, and makes diagnoses based on its observations of citizens attempting to solve problems together.
As this learning progresses, Kettering shares its research findings through the publication of research reports, books, occasional papers, and videos posted on this web site. (See www.kettering.org.) The Foundation also disseminates its research in three periodicals:
- the Kettering Review is a journal of ideas that offers articles by scholars and practitioners on a variety of subjects related to democracy, including the changing roles of the citizen, the press, public leadership, and public opinion
- the Higher Education Exchange, published annually, serves as a forum between scholars and the public about higher education
- Connections, Kettering’s annual newsletter, provides updates and reports on the Foundation’s research.
In addition, Kettering produces materials, including issue books and starter videos, for the National Issues Forums, a network of civic and educational organizations whose common interest is promoting public deliberation. The Foundation studies the work of NIF as part of its research efforts.
For more information, contact:
Kettering Foundation, 200 Commons Rd. Dayton, OH 45459 Phone: 937-434-7300
Washington, D.C. Office: 444 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 434, Washington, D.C. 20001, Phone: 202-393-4478
Foundation Programs
Kettering’s research is focused on six interrelated program areas:
Citizens and Public Choice
Citizens can’t gain a greater degree of control over their collective future unless they can make decisions about what they should do and what policies are best for themselves and their communities. Public deliberation increases the chances that decisions will be sound. How can public decision making be more deliberative?.
Community Politics
Citizens sense that they need to come together as a community to act on persistent, or “wicked,” problems that threaten their community. These problems can’t be solved without public action and work. How do citizens go about doing the work they must do to rule themselves? And what builds the capacity to do this work?
“Public” Public Education
Citizens want greater control over their collective future, and nothing is more crucial than the future of their children. Unfortunately, people do not necessarily feel they have ownership of their public schools, and school ties to their community may be weak. Yet, citizens often sense they can affect the education of young people despite a perception of their minimal influence on schooling. Are there unrealized opportunities for the coproduction of education?
Public-Government Relationship
Even though, in a democracy, citizens, in effect, rule themselves, government institutions must often act on their behalf. Yet, people fear the political system surrounding government is unduly influenced by special interests. They also have doubts that the government can deliver on the things citizens want done. Equally troubling, participatory requirements and accountability standards may exacerbate rather than ameliorate the concerns of citizens.
Institutions and Professions in the Public Realm
Kettering studies the role in a democracy of specialized, highly skilled, often very technical professionals and of the institutions and organizations in which they function. In a global, expert-driven world, can citizens really do anything that will make a significant difference?
Multinational Research
Democracy is not confined to the United States, and the notion that it can be exported from one country to another is problematic. Kettering seeks to learn from experiments in deliberative self-rule around the globe, including learning about the way democracies can respond to the threat of violent conflict.