The European Institute on Public Participation has published together with the Bertelsmann Foundation a systematic comparison of public participation models used in poilcy-making (pdf, in German). In particular the study focuses on large-scale deliberative models and how they are used by whom. These models include everything from Appreciative Inquiry to Participatory Budgeting to Future Workshops.
The handbook is intended for policy-makers, pracitioners of public participation and researchers. It explicitly follows a systematic, though application-oriented approach. This helps to compare the remit and merit of each model. They are analysed according to …

The Citizens’ Forum is a new form of participation developed by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Ludwig-Erhard Foundation and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation. It is a 6-8 week online deliberation embedded in two live events, one at the beginning of the process and the other one at the end. A new article on Participedia describes the second edition of the Citizens’ Forum Europe.
Between November 2008 and June 2009, 361 randomly selected German residents participated in this innovative process of online-deliberation. They formed a Citizens’ Forum with eight committees (each with circa …