Thanks for the shout out!

...to policy, perhaps making institutions seem more relevant or responsive.

The idealistic part of me sees deliberative or discursive public policy as having an opportunity actually strengthen the legitimacy of institutions in the current context.

Maybe it's idealism, but I feel that properly leveraged and applied, deliberative public policy can reconnect the public...

Always a good time! As both an academic and a policy practitioner, I find it useful in both my spheres.

That being said - it wasn't written the current context of life threatening challenges to liberal democracy.

It may not be deliberative democracy in the style of "abandon legislative drafting in favour of consensus circles," but it turns on the idea that public policy should be more actively in discussion and deliberation with its subjects and objects through institutions. Maybe.

I am not so reluctant in calling myself a deliberative democrat, and I also anchor a lot of policy work in institutions. Frank Fischer's work on reframing public policy in a discursive and deliberative context was pretty interesting to me.

We won't stare at you for that, but we may ask inopportune questions about upside-down things.

These also make instant sense in Canada. And I was sitting here thinking that serviette was a weird "Hello Bonjour!" kind of Canadianism.