Join our next research-to-practice talk online to hear two participatory democracy experts discuss the democratic possibilities of citizen deliberation based on research in the Philippines and political theater in India.

Can deliberative democracy work in societies divided by partisan loyalties and competing claims? The speakers will argue that yes, it can, but only under certain conditions. Drawing on nearly 10 years of field research in the Philippines — the so-called “ground zero” of the global disinformation epidemic — they will identify possibilities for bridging partisan divides, ranging from micropolitical interventions to structured forums for citizen deliberation. It’s time to stop viewing ordinary citizens as naive and manipulatable consumers of information and instead treat them as political actors with agency.