Public
Dialogue
Psychology
Collaboratory

Introduction

PDPC was established in 2020, within the collaboratory we are developing dialogical methods which work with citizens, civil society, practitioners, policy-makers and politicians, to promote understanding and political dialogue.

PDPC operates in a time when the political fortunes of the public are on the rise, there exists mechanisms of direct democracy (from single-issue referendum votes, to expressing opinions on social media) at the same time citizenship capacity is growing with flattened timespace allowing us to connect and develop ideas with other people across the globe. These new dynamics in dialogue and democracy lead to powerful collective actions, yet they also lead to some voices being silenced or overlooked, increased polarisation and inability to sustain dialogue with one another. 

Public opinion data is gathered in fast-moving cycles often commissioned by political groups or large media players. This involves remote on-line methodologies and closed response questions where participants cannot show nuance or express their own unique responses. Public opinion data risks becoming a hostage to whatever binaries the researchers are committed to.  Yet it is presented often as an authoritative source of knowledge on the public. Be it voting intentions, trust in governments or attitudes towards immigration – public opinion data risks becoming a technocratic proxy for the worldviews of the public. 

Public opinion data is released into the public sphere in fast news cycles which can dominate the narrative of a breaking story. A democratic risk is that public opinion data becomes understood by everyone as a quick gauge on what the public really think about any given issue. 

What we do

Within PDPC, we supplement the gathering of public opinion and attitudinal data with methods to understand and promote public dialogue. We do not work with existing binaries but rather work along a spectrum of positions.  Our samples, for example, include citizens with differing degrees of migration-mobility rather than migrants and non-migrants. In this sense we diffuse the polarising drama, by supporting the diffraction of pre-existing binaries on the public.  PDPC’s use of the term citizen, refers to a psychological capacity (an enlarged mentality), rather than an individual socio-legal status. 

Our methods involve stimulus-led narrative techniques, and pairing techniques. PDPC takes a dialogical approach which understands citizens as dialogical citizens capable of taking a variety of positions on any given issue. This approach also affords the capacity to understand why citizens align with specific groups or the wider public.  What motivates them and sustains them when engaged in collective action.

Public Dialogue and Common Sense.

Equally this approach understands that prevailing common-sense can position and categorise people in ways that are an obstacle to dialogue. We therefore spend time working on understanding how common-sense is being used when citizens talk. Our approach to understanding common-sense is known as the social representationsapproach and our approach to citizens draws heavily on theories about the dialogical self.

As a result of this multi-faceted approach, PDPC can offer a richer, more carefully calibrated account of the public’s outlook to stakeholders; be it other citizens, civil society organisations or political actors.  Equally PDPC conducts research with politicians and policy-makers and the development of terms of reference of policy areas. Appreciating citizens as having political capacities and politicians as inevitably human. PDPC engages in policy-proofing by facilitating members of the public to debate the key concepts and terms of reference that are being used by governments on the area in question. We are developing political attunement tools to work within vexed political areas where consensus is not easily achieved and may not even be desirable.

Our Current Projects

We work on consensus, dissensus and political attunement as being vital to effective democratic decision-making. Current projects include the Horizon-Europe/Innovate UK co-funded 17-partner OppAttune consortium which is tackling what we term everyday extremism, scientific coordination led by Kesi Mahendran, the political decision-making of the so-called Silent Generation, led by Sue Nieland, the four-country sustained dialogue study in collaboration with Malmö University (Sweden) & KCSS (Kosovo), led by Anthony English, Citizen Decisions on Everyday Extremism across Shared Borders: A dialogical investigation into the rise of extreme narratives & the war in Ukraine. led by Tania Shyriaieva, quali-quant pathways across the migration-mobility continuum, led by Nicola Magnusson and the dialogical dynamics of political mobilisation and followership: Exploring everyday extremism in citizens’ political decision-making in Greece and UK led by Evangelia Vergouli.

On this site you will find a wealth of resources to support the advancement of public dialogue.