Throughout the world there are a myriad of organizations and people seeking out more inclusive and dynamic ways to involve citizens in decision-making processes at the local, provincial/state, and national levels. Listed below is a glossary of selected citizen participation techniques that are being tested and applied.

Civic Journalism
Civic journalism (also know as "public" or "community" journalism) is a process that utilizes the media to help engage citizens in public life, to promote and improve public deliberation, and to strengthen the connections between journalists and their communities. It essentially involves journalists -- along with their broadcast outlets -- in producing coverage that not only reports on problems but also promotes education and discussion that leads to solutions. Civic journalism proceeds from two assumptions: (1) Self-government depends on citizen participation: when civic engagement erodes, so does the need for new media. (2) Journalism can work toward better self-government and public life without sacrificing its cherished values and traditions: indeed, those values and traditions lose their force in the absence of a spirited public life.    
http://www.poynter.org/

Community Indicator Projects
Members of a community get together and work through a process to formulate indicators of community progress. The indicators are more subtle than 'crime' or 'GDP', and therefore become a tool to use to intervene in public policy. There are many of these projects happening around the world now. To find out more, contact Redefining Progress in San Franciso.
http://www.rprogress.org

NEW! Community Issues Groups
Community Issues Groups (CIGs) are a combination of the focus group and citizen jury. The purpose is to to capture the energy, reach and cost-effectiveness of a focus group, combined with the potential depth of the jury. CIGs consist of 8-12 people who meet for roughly 2-2.5 hours on several occasions to discuss designated issues in depth. Each meeting is designed to build on discussions of the previous session. Proponents of the method claim that it promotes a valuable interaction based on reason, reflection and revision. Not to be confused with a Standing Committee, the aim is to bring public participation and deliberation into the decision-making process.

Consultation (traditional)
Consultation is a method traditionally utilized by governments to seek the input of stakeholders on a particular policy issue. It can take many forms including:
councils, round tables, task forces, forums, commissions of inquiry, advisory boards, focus groups/polling, ongoing discrete/informal consultation.

Deliberative Polling
This is a technique advocated by James Fishkin, who views televoting as non-deliberative and town hall meetings as unrepresentative of the general public. In this process, a national random sample of citizens is brought together for two or three days to discuss an issue. After completing a survey, they read objective materials and have an opportunity to ask questions of competing experts and/or politicians. After participating in plenary and small group sessions, they are finally polled in detail to determine how much their opinions have changed.

Electronic Town Meetings
These usually involve television but also radio, computer and telephone. They rely on the use of trained moderators, the recruitment of a representative sample of the population as participants, and the distribution of material to participants before the meeting. The earliest use of ETMs dates back to the 1970s.

NEW! Fish Bowl
In a fish bowl, a small group engages in a discussion around a controversial issue, while a larger group of participants observes. After the discussion, members of the larger group offer feedback. Fish bowls provide all participants the opportunity to contribute to the discussion on the issue, as well as listen closely to the thoughts and ideas of others.

NEW! Future Search Conferences
A Future Search Conference is a two-day meeting where participants attempt to create a shared community vision of the future. The process is managed by a steering group of local people representing key sections of the community. They take part in a highly-structured 2.5 day process in which they review the past and create ideal future scenarios. Practitioners claim that it is designed to empower participants in that it upholds the idea that individuals are experts in their own lives. (There are facilitators present but no other experts.) It is also designed to reach consensus by bringing together key stakeholder groups who are often opposed to each other to find common ground and find solutions. Those taking part are expected to identify points of action and to be responsible for realizing them.
http://www.ippr.org.uk

NEW! Interactive Panels
A panel is composed of 12 members of the general public meeting roughly three times a year to discuss topics set by the organisers. Several panels, each following the same agenda, are organized simultaneously to provide confidence of the results. Members are recruited by quota sampling to cover a range of demographic characteristics, though there is a regular turnover of membership to bring in new voices. Frequently, they are supplied information beforehand, and are encouraged to discuss the material with friends and family. The purpose is to explore the views and values of the public on the issue at hand. An independent researcher generally facilitates panels. The discussion is recorded and Transcripts, as well as a final report, are produced, providing qualitative and quantitative information on members' views. To date, Interactive Panels have been used mainly be health authorities, although they could be readily established by other agencies to address a wide range of topics.
http://www.ippr.org.uk

Neighbourhood Planning
Functions in a similar fashion to the City of Seattle's Neighbourhood Planning. Precinct committees form and receive city funding to employ consultants to work with their communities and formulate neighbourhood plans, including local spending priorities. These plans are then fed into the City plan.
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/seattle/npo/npoover.htm

NEW! Nominal Group Workshops
Nominal Group Workshops are based on the premise that a representative group of individuals concerned with a project can identify virtually all the problems and make compromises in order to produce a single list of priorities. The workshop, consisting of approximately 25 people, begins with the facilitator distributing a background report and providing a chance for people to ask questions. Working individually, the participants are asked to list one major issue and several associated challenges pertaining to the topic. Then, participants are assigned to small groups of 4-6 people to discuss their responses. These are recorded on a flip chart. Once the small groups have completed their inventories of issues, everyone reconvenes to the large group and all the flip charts are displayed around the room. The participants are then handed out ballots, and are asked to vote on the issues that they feel are the most important. The ballots are then counted, and the issues are ranked by the number of ballots that they received. Following the prioritization of the issues, there is a discussion, guided by the facilitator, on the results of the process.

On-line Discussions
A variety of internet-based communications tools have arisen that facilitate interaction between citizens and groups in disparate locations. These include mailing lists, usenet groups, internet relay chats, electronic conferences and intranets. One of the benefits of this form of communication tends to be a flattening of hierarchies in group relationships. http://www.worldbank.org/devforum

NEW! Open Houses
The purpose of the open house is to provide an environment for a free-flowing conversation directed by the visitor. People can come whenever they wish, stay as long or short a time as they wish, speak to whomever they please and address whatever topics of interest in whatever order they choose. As a result, staff talk with a larger number and broader cross-section of the population than they would at the typical public meeting. Moreover, the quality of the exchanges is usually much higher; thus, the open house can provide the setting for clear communication. It requires that the hosts be prepared to answer questions, to explore options and to be open to listen to concerns voiced by the public.

Open Spaces
An expansion of study circles and search conferences which involves large groups (as many as 500 people) meeting to discuss an issue. This method was used recently in Canada during a proposed merger of hospitals. Participants included a wide range of hospital employees and stakeholders who would be directly affected by the decisions taken.

Public Agenda and National Issues Forum (a variation of study circles concept)
Public Agenda is a non-partisan organization founded in 1975 by Daniel Yankelovich and Cyrus Vance. It does three things: 1) conducts traditional public opinion surveys and focus groups; 2) prepares issue books and writes final reports from National Issues Forums for the Kettering Foundation; and 3) organizes and supports deliberation forums with other partners.
http://www.publicagenda.org/   
http://www.kettering.org/

Search Conferences
First used in 1960 and designed as an approach to participative strategic planning and community development grounded in behavioural science principles. Search conferences typically involve anywhere from 20 to 60 or more people who work progressively for two or three days on planning tasks, primarily in large-group plenary sessions. They tend to rely exclusively on oral interaction.
http://www.futuresearch.net

Televoting
Citizens register as televoters and subsequently receive facts and opposing views on a number of policy options. After a short period of time, televoters express their preferences on these options by dialing a specific telephone number.