Deliberative Walks – Civic Participation in Local-Level Planning Processes

Recently, a focus on democratic innovations that emphasize increasing and deepening citizen participation in political decision-making has been evident (Smith 2009). Deliberative Walks offer a participatory process in which the participants, by deliberating in small groups and joining facilitated walks, tackle a complex policy issue that has highly intertwined social and physical dimension. The Deliberative Walk approach makes it possible for participants to acquire a more holistic experience of the issue they are deliberating on and can reduce the distance between decision-makers and citizens. Deliberative Walks combine a citizens´ jury with a developmental walk and are influenced by place-responsive pedagogy. Like in outdoor pedagogy, learning by moving between the abstract and concrete as well as transforming experience into knowledge through reflection and communication is encouraged. In this paper, we analyse a Deliberative Walk with 19 university students. A result of the Deliberative Walk was a joint statement including several suggestions on how the university campus and its surroundings could be developed, which was presented and handed over to local officials and politicians. Deliberative Walks offer a new way for inhabitants to influence local decision-making and a new participatory space where inhabitants and decision-makers can meet.