After many years of perfecting the art of deliberative polling from his place as director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, Fishkin offers fresh evidence of the promise the model holds for democracyThe goal is to find out what people would really think if they could share concerns and hear from experts - opinions change, and people learn about one anotherOrganization, technology, and incentives make it possible to become more thoughtful democratic citizens. Wonderful research; strongly recommended. A.R. Brunello, Eckerd College, writing for Choice magazine, vol 47, no 10 intriguing...a portrait of public opinion that is more thoughtful than top-of-the-head responses to pollster questions. Walter Shapiro, Politics Daily It is a wonderful, rare mix of deep political theory and careful attention to the practical challenges to making democracy work. Sidney Milkis, University of Virginia Professor of Politics He makes a persuasive case for his experiments in When the People Speak . The descriptions of the differing debates and outcomes of a long list of assemblies is continuously interesting and often fascinating. Stuart Weir, Open Democracy James Fishkin has spearheaded an ambitious project to marry the modern science of opinion polling with the ideal of democratic discussion...When the People Speak is the latest formal enunciation of this new methodology. It's not Fishkin's first book on the topic but it is the most theoretically ambitious and comprehensive to date. Lynn Sanders, University of Virginia Since James Fishkin designed deliberative opinion polls almost two decades ago, they have been conducted around the world...This particular type of deliberative polling, reconceptualized most recently in When the People Speak, is likely the most effective institutional mechanism known to date for bringing to life the ideal of deliberative democracy. Albena Azmanova, Director of Program in International Political Economy and Political Strategy and Communication, Brussels School of International Studies, University of Kent The Deliberative Polls of James Fishkin represent today the gold standard of attempts to sample what a considered public opinion might be on issues of political importance. Jane Mansbridge, Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University When the People Speak is both a heartfelt plea for a far more deliberative conception of political democracy and a rigorous analysis of what now constitute almost two decades of data amassed in the course of conducting what Fishkin terms deliberative polls all over the world. Fishkin is almost literally unique in combining the talents of a world-class political theorist with those of an equally first-rate social scientist asking genuinely radical questions about our political order and, at the same time, suggesting what would be equally radical changes. Sanford Levinson, Chair in Law and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin, and author of Our Undemocratic Constitution James Fishkin is an impressive individual ... Fishkin has done what (to my knowledge) no other democratic theorist has attempted, namely, to design his own democratic institution-the deliberative poll (DP) The accompanying DVD offers an indispensable insight into how a DP works and will play a useful pedagogical function: It will enliven discussions on democratic innovations in the seminar room and also enlighten those many critics of Fishkin who clearly do not understand or appreciate the designs dynamics. Graham Smith, University of Southampton, in Perspectives on Politics Fishkin's idea of a systematic social science research program on democratic innovations is timely, and the general strategy that recognizes the compromise between democratic goods or principles that any particular democratic design entails is an important insight ... A final comment on the DVD, Europe in One Room, that accompanies the book. The film offers an indispensable insight into how a DP works and will play a useful pedagogical function: It will enliven discussions on democratic innovations in the seminar room and also enlighten those many critics of Fishkin who clearly do not understand or appreciate the designs dynamics. Graham Smith, University of Southampton, in Perspectives on Politics
