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. However, public forums operate on the premise that citizens must take responsibility for and act on their problems. Citizens cannot act together until they decide together.
Public deliberation is a precondition for public action.
Forums result in defining the area between agreement and disagreement, called common ground for action. This provides a general direction in which to move. This text was extracted from the publication, EP93.