Journal of Dialogue Studies Vol 11

Today, there is an ever present anxiety about the failures in the practices of representative democracy. As observable in the current global political turmoil, the electoral process in many parts of the world is fraught with rivalry, antagonism, corruption, manipulation, and other deep-seated problems. To move away from such a political impasse, scholars and researchers have proposed to revisit the governance ‘turn’ starting three decades ago (Boussaguet, Dehousse & Jacquot 2011). The burgeoning intellectual curiosity and academic interest at the time was part of the continued effort to reconceptualise a new form of governance, not based on voting, but centred on dialogue. Integrating dialogue in governance has the promise of engaging diverse actors and stakeholders and involving multiple perspectives in collective decision making through consensus. This is regarded as one of the major characteristics of participatory democracy – an inclusive and collaborative approach for all to take part in the political process (Gill & Thomson, forthcoming). With emerging practices, such as the cooperative movement, Barcelona’s participatory governance model, the worldwide citizens assemblies, and Climate Assembly in the UK, there is a growing optimism in the possibility of co-creating a better future through dialogue and collaboration. Whilst recognising the need for an inclusive and consensus-based approach to policymaking, there is at the same time an unease about the theory’s naivety, owing to the seeming unfeasibility of the practice. Many have cast doubt on humans’ collective capacity to do politics together. Amongst the typical objections are that people tend to be too selfish, lazy, ignorant, aggressive, unmotivated, and easily persuaded, for dialogue to be meaningful for them. Moreover, there are too many people with too diverse opinions and too unreconcilable interests to make consensus possible (Menser 2018). There are more serious concerns around how institutions can be structured and engaged in participatory governance. Which institutions could facilitate public dialogue? How might these dialogue practices be implemented through the different institutions in order to co-ordinate inclusive and harmonious consensus building? What institutional processes should be put in place to carry forward the public-generated decisions and public-proposed policies?

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Participatory democratic governance requires consensus-building processes. Consensus usually implies coming to some agreement about a set of propositions, but there is much more involved because consensus is also a set of social relations that allow people to act together and live harmoniously even when there is propositional disagreement. This paper proposes a conceptual examination of some of the different kinds of disagreements that may make consensus seem near impossible. By classifying the main types of discord, we can provide a conceptual map of the dialogues needed for consensus-building processes. We also need to characterise dialogue as such, distinguishing it from debate, discussion, and conversation, and distinguish it from various forms of conflict resolution such as mediation, group-problem solving and conflict transformation. To define the kinds of discord that make consensus difficult, we shall characterise the hermeneutics of listening, as well as the structure of communication. This will enable us to identify how dialogical processes can go wrong in ways relevant to consensus-building. From this, we distinguish four basic kinds of dialogical processes needed for consensus-building governance.

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This paper engages with Paulo Freire’s dialogical proposal for promoting individual consciousness, collective emancipation, and effective social changes in order to question some of the main contemporary obstacles to meaningful dialogues taking place. Considering Freire’s idea, in which dialogue is both a result of and a fundamental condition for humanisation, the question is where and why there are barriers to, and failures of, dialogical governance processes in the current global context where social fragmentation is more latent and ideological divergences more evident and challenging to address. To discuss this question, the case of the Popular University of Social Movements (UPMS) is analysed. In 2003 at the World Social Forum, the UPMS emerged with a challenging proposal to constitute a space in which activists, academics, artists, entities, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and local, national, and global social movements who oppose all forms of oppression, can freely and democratically exchange their ideas. Although the UPMS is a space of articulation outside traditional institutional processes, its model implies significant changes in how academic and governmental institutions relate to social movements, activists, and other sectors of society. The article concludes that for dialogue to flourish, it is necessary to define the conditions, processes and spaces that take account of the fundamental pillars of humanisation pointed out by Freire: love, humility, and the faith of individuals in their capacity to create and recreate the world together. In this sense, the case of the UPMS teaches us that it is possible to promote internal changes in structures and institutions through the consolidation of successful dialogical experiences outside institutional walls.

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In March 2022, pro-democratic actors, civil society platforms and organisations, and political activists from Equatorial Guinea and its diaspora signed the Pacto Político and Pacto de Concordia, an agreement to build a culture of dialogue and deepen its mechanisms toward peaceful political transitions and governance collaboration. This paper presents perspectives on a culture of dialogue within the contexts of national and diasporic socio-political movements, transnationalism, and webs of digital connections committed to defending human rights, civil liberties, and political freedom and representation in Equatorial Guinea. The inquiry of a culture of dialogue as an agreement to respect political plurality and cooperate in cohesion in response to lived experiences of struggle for liberation focuses on the trajectories of a civic society platform or social alliances. This inquiry considers phenomenology as a point of departure to analyse how the centrality of bodies’ expressions, performances, and lived experiences represent cultural references for the meaning and practice of dialogue. This preliminary and general overview of one description of the culture of dialogue among pro-democratic actors in Equatorial Guinea and diaspora identifies characteristics and qualities of dialogue based on the trajectories and combinations of identities, spaces, and social structures. Pro-democratic actors’ transnational, diasporic, and digital political mobilisation enrich theoretical conversations about intra- and inter-community dialogues, calls for dialogue, and public dialogues. The goal is to expand into possibilities and venues of peaceful pressure systems that, despite the challenges in communication and non-existent peaceful relations between dictatorship and pro-democratic systems in Equatorial Guinea, attempt to solve immediate needs and build up a culture of understanding and collaboration.

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Despite the subtle differences, the terms conversation and dialogue are frequently used interchangeably. Conversation is an informal exchange of ideas, thoughts, and opinions between two or more people; it occurs in a range of settings from formal to informal, without a specific goal or objective. Conversation is a ‘model, method, end and means’ (Pattison 2020, 88) of communication. On the other hand, dialogue refers to a more structured and intentional exchange of ideas and opinions between two or more participants with the aim of achieving a specific outcome; it is often more formal and structured. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the delicate differences between dialogue and conversation and make a case for the use of the less formal methods of conversation in exchanges where human flourishing, belonging, and understanding are sought. This article is in three parts. First, the difference between dialogue and conversations is explored. Second, I introduce Appreciative Inquiry (AI) (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987) and its development for use in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) conversations through The Lotus Model Process (Teller 2021, 404) with the seven types of conversation. Third, I present a report on a workshop where DEI topics of cultivating belonging and inclusion were explored by an international organisation. Finally, practice recommendations are made for using conversation as a methodological approach with the aim of creating spaces that enable belonging and understanding to emerge at an individual, team, and organisational level.

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Traditionally governance is set up to stabilise and control and hold organisations accountable for their actions. Experts, decision-making and privileged citizens close to the centres of power and strategic decision-making determine those processes. Hence, many voices and perspectives are silenced, resulting in mismatches between policies and people’s needs. We propose a participatory approach to governance in the field of healthcare where people in vulnerable and marginalised positions are involved through a relational process to influence policies, with the goal of social justice and social change. This requires a communicative space for mutual learning, listening, questioning, and dialogue. In practice, we find that precisely the experiential and pathic knowledge of people in the margins often produces a breakthrough in making contact with policymakers and professionals and interrupts processes of silencing and epistemic injustice. For example, a creative expression in a performance or exhibition leads to a call to action. In our article, we illustrate our approach with a few cases from our practice of an eight-year-long collaboration with people in vulnerable positions, artists, researchers, managers, and policymakers to make a change towards social inclusion in a large city in the Netherlands.

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The proposed paper aims to emancipate, critique and broaden the notion of communication associated with diplomacy studies. The purpose is to advance the understanding that conceptualising dialogue as a method, technique and institution can be relevant to the broader discourse on diplomacy studies. Empirically the paper would focus on two narratives- The first is the meta-narrative, which primarily examines the issues, concerns and expectations of the state actors, and the second is the micro-narrative, which examine the impact of these negotiated agreements at local level, thus bringing the ecological, social and cultural concerns upfront. Thus, the objective of this article is to emancipate the understanding of communication challenge in water diplomacy, which is often confronted with competing narratives. By informing the concept of narratives with dialogue, the paper attempts to open conceptual space to engage with Asian epistemological traditions, which often employed dialogic techniques in/between narratives to further communication. The article proceeds in three sections. The first section focuses on the importance of communication on water diplomacy, highlighting the intersections between narratives and dialogue. The second section focus es on Ganges Water Treaty in South Asia (which was a state actor led initiative). Highlighting the limitations of this narrative, limitations of communication in water diplomacy are highlighted. In the third section, South Asian epistemological tradition is revisited to foreground the importance of dialogue in formulating narratives, which can address the communication challenge in transboundary water cooperation.

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This paper proposes a reflective approach to exploring the complex relationship between dialogue and governance. It first recalls the different dimensions of dialogue and its centrality in governance and discusses the fundamental tension between these two practices that constantly challenges power dynamics in decision making. Through analyses of how different governance systems tend to domesticate, shape, and regulate dialogue in responding to this tension, this paper further identifies three types of dialogue that come into play in three different contexts: (1) ‘open-ended’ dialogue practised by the African endogenous systems of governance, (2) ‘locked dialogue’ imposed by the African Nation States, and (3) ‘biased dialogue’ promoted by international and transnational organisations. Such analyses are particularly meaningful in enabling us to draw lessons from these three cases of interaction between dialogue and governance. Ultimately, this paper seeks to reconcile the requirements for multidimensional and relational practices of dialogue with the rational processes of governance in an increasingly globalised and interdependent world.

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Despite the growing implementation of entrepreneurial policies within the Caribbean and the recognition of the structural and relational challenges that impact women entrepreneurs, there is little discussion on the possibilities for using collaborative governance practices to empower and enhance the lives of women in that space. These gaps centre not just the inadequacies of the public policy process, but also those related to governance practices that underpin the contexts for women entrepreneurs. Where these gaps remain indicative of broader limitations within the ideological framing of managerialism within the public policy process, it is important to disrupt the political and social imaginaries embedded within the thinking and practices of female entrepreneurship within the region. The paper will therefore adopt a post-structural feminist approach and that of critical discourse analysis to assess the degree of consultation within the public policy process, the extent to which this identifies and addresses the concerns of women in the sector, and the implications for reframing public policy as a collaborative governance process. The intentions are both to illuminate the relevance of collaboration and participation within dialogue as an extension of consultation but also as a requirement for addressing matters of inclusivity, visibility, and equity within the public policy process.

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In Brave New World Revisited Aldous Huxley observed that ‘genius has been the servant of tyranny and art has advertised the merits of the local cult’ (Huxley 1958). Regarding the complex relationship between art and society, Huxley argued that democracies need to identify good art in the making rather than retrospectively. Drawing also on Raymond Williams’ analysis of the limits imposed on dialogue by representative democracy (Williams 1980), this article considers the data from our pilot ethnography on the prospects for cultural democracy in the arts. Private patronage and largely unaccountable interests presently influence the use of public money; spending is guided towards the logic of individual or organisational self-promotion and an overwhelmingly promotional culture which serves different types of governance, whether authoritarian or democratic. By incorporating private patronage and non-western gift-economics many critical dialogues springing from the arts are contoured by their origins in elite social and political courtship (Bourdieu 1977; Burke [1790] 1997; Schiller [1794] 1994). Here we show how aesthetics remain a key to twenty-first century statecraft. Noting the effects of top-down patronage, whether in the direct manipulation of dialogue or in the more indirect tailoring of critique, the premise of our research is that if widening participation in the arts matters, it matters first and foremost in decision making about spending. Our study tests the deliberative capacities of randomised citizen juries as patrons financially empowered to commission public-interest arts projects on controversial themes and across contested frontiers of sovereignty or cultural identity. We consider our initial findings from the comparison of deliberation in non-randomised control groups and in randomised juries. We discuss the potentially positive role of randomised citizen juries as ‘jolts’ of equality and pluralism at the level of cultural governance (Connolly 2017). We also outline the main political, institutional, and professional blockages and impediments to the democratic integration of such empowered dialogical encounters.

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Since the 1980s, intercultural dialogue has become increasingly valued for its contribution to reducing prejudice, improving relationships, increasing intercultural understanding, managing difference and diversity, and contributing to democratic processes. Research has helped us understand, from lived experience and perspectives how intercultural dialogue contributes to meaningful and culturally appropriate societal engagement within diverse communities. But theories of dialogue have been largely on the back foot when applied to models of governance and work on leadership. Anxiety about the adequacy of leadership in our confusing, fragmenting, and fast-changing times appears on the increase. A better leadership requires new thinking about governance, new approaches perhaps that are refocused on the potentials and realities in our complex world, and on delivering positive changes to that world. This does suggest that we search for new understandings, and new arrangements for governance, and ones that might not resemble models with which we are currently familiar.

The new ideas in this paper reflect governance that adapts to change, focus on behaviours, models, and cultures of leadership, and amplify the importance of dialogue approaches to key governance relationships. The paper looks critically at how dialogue can both succeed and fail in reinforcing both social capital, generally, and key relations between the governing and the governed. We explore whether the most significant resistance to progress is entirely social (referencing solidarity, shared values, and a sense of belonging) or whether the resistance is from structural conditions (deprivation, inequality, discrimination). In addition to drawing new conclusions from the literature as well as fresh experience from diverse global contexts and new forms of conflict, about the conditions in which dialogue prospers or fails, we highlight where new empirical studies might add to our overall understanding. We look at where both social movements and incidental conversations might create new contexts for dialogue and for supporting the trusted relationships so important for inclusive leadership and positive governance and what this means for actions and policies.

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The complexity and commonality of today’s local and global challenges, such as achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, deepening democratic governance, preventing violent conflict, or tackling terrorism, is a poignant reminder of our increasing interdependence and the distant future of equity. Much like other nations, India is experiencing and resisting each of these. Since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, the contours of these experiences and resistances are marked by somewhat centralised and authoritarian stakes imbued in an ‘emotional force’. The emotional force is rooted in values of Hindutva which has a precise type of ideological construction of how India, its people, and the Indian democracy should be. There is a conspicuous dualism and chauvinism in the imagined democracy. This imagination derives and delivers the ‘new democracy’ which is inextricably grounded in the majoritarian-populist politics. Bearing this in mind, this paper aims to unpack and understand the way democracy and dialogue, or the lack of it, shapes the everyday experience, while using some pertinent examples to typify the discourse. We find that democracy is challenged, but questioning its meaning is wrought with grim complexity and tensions. The author takes stock of an ongoing event to demonstrate that democracy and dialogue are becoming provisional and desultory tools in the larger scheme of things in India.

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When ‘talks about talks’ between the politicians in Northern Ireland were collapsing in 1992, what we needed was listening about listening. Robin Wilson (then the editor of the political affairs magazine, Fortnight) and I (then the professor of jurisprudence at Queen’s University Belfast) co-founded Initiative 92, supported by a broad alliance of patrons across civic society and funded by Quaker and other charities. In the autumn of 1992, we established an independent commission of inquiry chaired by Torkel Opsahl, the Norwegian human rights lawyer. Submissions were invited from all-comers, including those who were then subject to broadcasting restrictions. The commission held hearings around Northern Ireland in January and February 1993. Their report was published on 9 June 1993, and then a major opinion survey gauged public reactions. This whole process of dialogue made a difference, playing a part in imagining what would happen if ‘they’, ‘the other side’ did this or that and how ‘we’ might react. Meanwhile, leaders of the different strands of nationalism were in their own dialogue, the Hume-Adams talks, the results of which were not made public. I wrote an article in the Irish Times on 14 October 1993 imagining what they might be saying. On 31 August 1994 came the first Irish Republican Army ceasefire, and I wrote in the Belfast Telegraph on 30 September 1994 an article imagining how unionists could respond constructively. Robin Wilson and I were called to give evidence to the New Ireland Forum in Dublin on 12 April 1995, after making a joint submission, ‘Towards a Participatory Democracy’. It took until 1998 for the Good Friday Agreement to emerge from the talks between politicians, chaired by Senator George Mitchell, but this paper explores the lessons for dialogue in other contexts from this experience of grassroots dialogue through Initiative 92.

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