Democracy in Small Groups: Participation, Decision Making, and Communication

The second edition of Democracy in Small Groups helps you choose the democratic method appropriate to the most important groups in your life. Reading this book will help you translate abstract theories into workable principles for democratic decision making. You will learn how to overcome the most common obstacles to effective meetings. You will also see how democratic principles can improve your daily life, as well as your larger political institutions. Whether organizing a yard sale for the PTA, a political campaign, or a project team at work, this book can help you and your group make and implement better decisions while building member morale and leadership skills.

“John Gastil brings good judgment, common sense, acute observation skills and a wealth of concrete experience to this study of democracy in small groups. Citizens, business people, churchgoers, workers—all those concerned with how to make a small group democracy work in practice—will find much to help them in this book.”
-- Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and author of Beyond Adversary Democracy

A special feature of the digital version of this book is that the references in the endnotes hyperlink back to original sources on the Internet, whenever possible. The book also links to a full bibliography at the Zotero online reference site.