Realistic and constructive and thinking and action! I love this, especially the chance to hear from local officials with experience and expertise and from citizens in order to *make the proposed policy better from the get-go*. Yes! The goal isn't just to "win" a PR or political battle and then probably have it undone down the line with regime change, or end up involving the courts, or just making everybody angry. Water in NM surely is a huge thing. Tying up a new source of supply with the oil and gas issue to boot? wow. Thanks for engaging. I'd like to stay in the loop. I'm here in NM so let me know if I can help in any way. :)
Gad you liked the piece, and putting it into conversation with Democracy Next brings up some very interesting points! We are actually submitting a response to NMs call for information about the SWS. In it, among other things, we focus on what we called "organized disagreement." That is, how engaging with diverse sets of publics who both agree and disagree, rather than just try to convince people through public relations, can actually make the project more politically viable, not less. Can citizen assemblies aid in that? Probably. One surprising feature can be the disagreement that arises, and thus the chance to alter policy proposals early, before they become difficult to change, in response to that disagreement. We also shouldn't discount city and state officials who, through hard won experience, have the expertise to anticipate who might oppose new policies. Thus giving agencies the chance to engage those communities actively in policy setting rather than just trying to beat them.
Realistic and constructive and thinking and action! I love this, especially the chance to hear from local officials with experience and expertise and from citizens in order to *make the proposed policy better from the get-go*. Yes! The goal isn't just to "win" a PR or political battle and then probably have it undone down the line with regime change, or end up involving the courts, or just making everybody angry. Water in NM surely is a huge thing. Tying up a new source of supply with the oil and gas issue to boot? wow. Thanks for engaging. I'd like to stay in the loop. I'm here in NM so let me know if I can help in any way. :)
Gad you liked the piece, and putting it into conversation with Democracy Next brings up some very interesting points! We are actually submitting a response to NMs call for information about the SWS. In it, among other things, we focus on what we called "organized disagreement." That is, how engaging with diverse sets of publics who both agree and disagree, rather than just try to convince people through public relations, can actually make the project more politically viable, not less. Can citizen assemblies aid in that? Probably. One surprising feature can be the disagreement that arises, and thus the chance to alter policy proposals early, before they become difficult to change, in response to that disagreement. We also shouldn't discount city and state officials who, through hard won experience, have the expertise to anticipate who might oppose new policies. Thus giving agencies the chance to engage those communities actively in policy setting rather than just trying to beat them.
Really interesting and I appreciate the concrete use cases. I could've used more context and digging into the water issue in NM tho