James S Fishkin

James S Fishkin is director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy in the department of communication, Stanford University. He is a pioneer of "deliberative polling" - a practice of public consultation that employs random samples of the citizenry to explore how opinions would change if they were more informed. Among his books are The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (Yale University Press, 1995) and (with Bruce Ackerman) Deliberation Day (Yale University Press, 2004).

Recent articles

Are collective decisions a reliable route to better public judgment? James Surowiecki's influential argument about "the wisdom of crowds" provokes James S Fishkin into elaborating the deliberative approach to public opinion as a means to revivify democratic processes and outcomes.