Programs

Our current projects hold the objective of improving successful experiences and a strengthening in the civic space holding good practices in public discussion.

Plural Networks Programme

Learning about good practices, developing tools for dialogue and capacity building are the three main activities that we propose to develop during the first year of work. We know that in various parts of the world there are civil society organisations, academic institutions and government programmes aimed at promoting dialogue, consensus building, coexistence, the debate of ideas and other activities that foster pluralism in the public sphere.
If we want to multiply these capacities, it is necessary to launch a programme that compiles these experiences and tools, systematises them conceptually, and creates networks to enhance their potential and impact. These tools, now empowered, can be taken to new areas and situations.

Deliberate to understand Programme

This programme nourishes and multiplies the findings of pluralistic networks. It is necessary to train the capacity to deliberate so that deliberation becomes a habitual, constructive practice that goes beyond confrontation. Different actors can be promoters. Governments are natural leaders for these transformations: legislative institutions (local councils, sub-national legislatures, national congresses), executive powers at different levels of government that formulate normative projects (draft laws and administrative norms), judicial authorities (public hearings and participatory instances are increasingly common) and superior control bodies. Non-governmental actors, CSOs, businesses, academic institutions, and even secondary schools have also demonstrated a growing capacity to generate instances of public debate.
In all these institutions, there are usual practices of debate but not yet of deliberation. Political debate in legislative institutions is competitive and not necessarily constructive; the prevailing polarisation undermines the possibility of mutual understanding and collective construction. In educational institutions, even those in which there are practices of debate, the idea of deliberation as a process of construction is not incorporated. Deliberate to understand is a programme aimed at creating pedagogical materials and training civil servants, legislators, advisors, civil society activists, teachers and students in useful resources to enhance the capacity for dialogue in a context where conflict and competition predominate.
Proyecto Disonante aims to work simultaneously on both programmes: detecting capacities for dialogue and networking them, on the one hand, and enhancing deliberation as a practice in institutions, on the other. The main impact we seek is for governments, companies and civil society organisations to increase their capacity to convene and engage in dialogue with the diversity of actors with whom they interact.

MORE ABOUT THE DISSONANT PROJECT​

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

WHO WE ARE

ABOUT US

Proyecto Disonante is led by Carolina Fernández Blanco and Hernán Charosky.

DIALOGUE

CONTACT US

We are interested in exchanging ideas with you.

Compartir