The Circle process is a means of addressing conflict that offers a great deal of promise for addressing the dysfunction and polarization that so often marks efforts to employ direct public engagement in local government decision-making of many ostensibly democratic communities today. This article describes that promise and the structure of Circle practice which give rise to its possibilities for public planners to engage communities in the activity of public planning and decision-making that affects all members of the communities. Circles make effective public engagement possible because they are grounded in the “restorative impulse within the human heart” that can lead to collaborative dialogue for collective decision-making conducted in a safe place in the midst of conflict in a distinctive way that builds community in the process.
Disputes arising from different views of moral understanding and the source of moral authority have been a prominent feature of political conflict, in recent years, in the United States. This phenomenon presents itself most dramatically in presidential election years when the cultural divide among Americans becomes the subject of the daily news cycle in the digital and print media. It has been especially intense since the presidency of Richard M. Nixon who resigned from office after being impeached by the United States House of Representatives and prior to undergoing trial on the impeachment charges by the United States Senate. But it is not an entirely new phenomenon. James Davison Hunter refers to this phenomenon as “The Culture Wars.” The stakes in these disputes ultimately involve a struggle for cultural domination, that is a struggle for survival of a particular way of life and its understanding of how life should be lived. Although this phenomenon is especially prominent in electoral contests at the state and national level, it can also break out in local government decision-making processes on routine matters such as zoning decisions pertaining to the use of land in a neighborhood. Thus, for example, disputes can arise between neighbors over such things as the location in residential neighborhoods of multiple dwelling buildings, commercial buildings, re-routed highways, re-configured parks, street lighting, half-way houses for ex-convicts, drug treatment centers, group homes for disabled persons, and many other municipal planning activities. The deep source of such disputes can be the cultural conflict that Hunter refers to but, even if such deep conflict is not explicitly present, a deeply divided and polarized set of positions can arise within a neighborhood. This can occur when the process chosen for public engagement is not able to avoid such polarization. The result is that the process itself can lead to further entrenchment of the polarized positions, making it even more difficult to engage the public in public planning. Even when planners take pains to offer time to speak to all attendees at a public meeting, this may not prevent the process from taking on the character of a zero-sum adversarial proceeding. The result is that no sense of an on-going community spirit can emerge, regardless of what is ultimately decided following public input in the decision-making process. In such circumstances the opportunity to speak is accompanied by a sense of the participants that one has not been heard which, in turn, dooms the possibilities that actually exist in conflict for developing a sense of community.
The upshot of local government decision-making in such a polarized setting is that many of the participants may leave it feeling ignored or at worst excluded. Some may feel they have “won” and others that they have “lost,” when in reality the entire neighborhood has lost an opportunity to build and strengthen its communal bonds. The conflict that could have presented the neighborhood with an opportunity is instead viewed as a threat by all participants. The ultimate outcome may well be that the neighborhood has come to be viewed as a field of contending forces rather than as a welcoming place for a collaborative community engaged in collective decision-making for the benefit of all. A decision may have been reached to permit a proposed plan to go forward, but the neighborhood may now be experienced by its inhabitants as less inviting over the long run. This can lead to individuals disengaging from such processes in the future.