Advocacy, in contrast to education, means personally working for a particular solution to a public problem. A person s advocacy position is based on emotions or personal values as well as facts. Public Deliberation Democracy requires an ongoing deliberative dialogue about challenging public policy issues. Public deliberation occurs when people gather to talk about a community problem that is important to them. Public meetings or forums where people can both advance their own opinions and listen to those of others are a foundation for finding common ground.
Public deliberations enrich participants thinking on public issues.
The process helps people to see issues from different points of view. At their best, forums help participants move toward shared, stable, well- informed public judgments, based on what is valuable to them about important issues. Through deliberation, participants move from making individual choices to making choices as a public. Deliberation involves discussion and an exchange of ideas, whereas debate occurs after opinions have polarized. Often citizens are seen as clients or customers of government.