Nicole Armos
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nicolearmos.bsky.social
Nicole Armos
@nicolearmos.bsky.social
Building capacity for transformative dialogue and public engagement at SFU's Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue
Reposted by Nicole Armos
"A brand-new democracy-driven vision for the country is long overdue."

New on Perspectives Journal: A New Democratic Approach for the NDP

Read more: perspectivesjournal.ca/new-approach...
A New Democratic Approach for the NDP | Perspectives Journal
There is an opportunity for the New Democratic Party of Canada and its provincial wings to renew their democratic vision by embracing deeper public learning and deliberation.
perspectivesjournal.ca
September 4, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Important conversation to be having as numerous studies show the strong influence local gov has on people's democratic norms and values.

Transparent decision-making & modeling healthy deliberation (even when it's "messy") helps to reduce polarization & foster trust in government.
I keep saying "city halls are legally designed to be the most collaborative and least political form of government", and local politicians keep going "but what if that wasn't the case".

The controversies differ by municipality but the root causes tend to be remarkably similar.
McElroy is bang on.

City councils are not parliaments, which are designed to be antagonistic. City councils are boards of governance. Different rules and standards apply.
August 26, 2025 at 5:24 PM
BC's City of New Westminster becomes the first city in Canada to integrate an ongoing deliberative Assembly reporting directly to staff and Council.

36 residents, selected by civic lottery to broadly represent the city's diverse demographics

pub-newwestcity.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx...
Report - Council Meeting - May 12, 2025
pub-newwestcity.escribemeetings.com
May 14, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Some people follow the riding by riding numbers, but all I really care for is @jmcelroy.bsky.social in ALL CAPS (and then the actual results!)
First polls in tonight's election about to close.

You can watch CBC's coverage...everywhere that CBC does stuff.

Our great team in Toronto will be leading the coverage until around 10-11pm tonight, and then we'll be taking the lead until 2am.

I'll post results here when I can.

expect all caps
April 29, 2025 at 3:37 AM
Reposted by Nicole Armos
Join us April 24 to launch "Advancing Climate Action through Participatory Democracy: Innovative Approaches for Public Engagement at the Local Level".

Let's talk about inclusive policy making, polarization & climate action!

Sign-up: bit.ly/ClimateDemoc...
Co-hosted with @climatecaucus.bsky.social
April 3, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Nicole Armos
How can creativity, arts and play help make democracy more inclusive? Our scoping review shows how arts-based methods are used to build solidarity and collective action for social change, but it also highlights key challenges.
Read our latest blog.
www.inspiredemocracy.eu/post/creativ...
Creativity, Play and Democracy: Lessons from a scoping review on arts-based and creative methods for inclusive participation for social change
How can we use creativity, arts and play to make participatory and deliberative democracy (PDD) more inclusive? This question guided a scoping review of the literature we conducted between May and August 2024, which provided us with important insights on how arts-based and creative methods can facilitate participation, particularly from groups who are often marginalised within politics and wider society. Our review also highlighted a set of challenges and ethical issues raised by these approache
www.inspiredemocracy.eu
December 18, 2024 at 3:10 PM
The survival of DEI's values in these dark times will depend on us truly embodying the "words on the page". Bringing justice to life beyond possibility of erasure.

PR strategies are easily discarded. The real work lives in enlightened minds, transformed relationships and redistributed resources.
February 5, 2025 at 5:34 AM
Wild to watch the hatred of "DEI" deconstructed before our eyes, down to the broad lexicon we've developed to understand our complex, beautiful and resilient human existence.
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
February 5, 2025 at 5:27 AM
What's on your shelf?
January 29, 2025 at 5:52 AM
I bumped into the @livedexperienceeducator account on Instagram last year, and have learned so much about how to discuss and design for neurodiversity in an affirming way.

Here the latest tool they've developed offering language beyond diagnosis

www.livedexperienceeducator.com/blog/theneur...
The Neurodiversity Smorgasbord: An Alternative Framework for Understanding Differences Outside of Diagnostic Labels — Lived Experience Educator
Before I introduce The Neurodiversity Smorgasbord, I would like to acknowledge that this framework which I started to develop in 2022 has been inspired, shaped, influenced by movements that have come...
www.livedexperienceeducator.com
January 18, 2025 at 3:14 AM
The City of New Westminster wrapped up the final meeting of its pilot year-long Community Advisory Assembly tonight.

We heard back from City staff about the traction started on the dozens of recommendations the group made on 4 municipal topics. And most importantly... (1/2)
January 17, 2025 at 7:21 AM
The past 15 months have utterly denigrated the meaning of international law, human rights, justice and democracy.

As the Palestinian people begin to rebuild from the rubble of their homes, the world needs to begin to rebuild a new notion of world order
This is @jeremykonyndyk.bsky.social's point, but it's worth emphasizing that the fact that getting food to starving people was included in this ceasefire deal (as an Israeli concession) is actually a huge failure of diplomacy. Humanitarian aid should never be a bargaining chip.
January 16, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Reposted by Nicole Armos
Fresh from @joannacm.bsky.social and me: a look at how setting up embedded, ongoing democratic innovations - rather than just occasionally dipping our toes into the waters of innovation - could help better connect policy makers and the public, incorporating findings from our recent article in CJPS.
January 14, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Great to see more space for conversation and experimentation with sortition recruitment!
The Journal of Sortition is launching soon. It should interest anyone hoping to see more experiments with random selection in democracy. For any skeptics out there, remember that the venerable jury system is doing just fine, thank you. www.imprint.co.uk/product/jos/
Journal of Sortition - Imprint Academic
SIGN UP HERE FOR THE JOURNAL OF SORTITION NEWSLETTER FOR A FREE PRINTED AND BOUND COPY OF THE FIRST ISSUE!   Launching in Spring 2025 Call for papers Little more than a decade ago the word ‘sortition...
www.imprint.co.uk
January 15, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Started the year with an interesting challenge: a toolkit for public engagement with the core goal of fostering public trust.

Engagement can inherently increase trust (as we see in the OECD data) but what are the unique aspects that enhance that effect? A few things I've been centering...
January 15, 2025 at 12:19 AM
My hand-made beeswax candles arrived from a family-run business and their vision of "nourishing people, planet and soul while starving hatred, greed and the Evil Empire" is...yes please.

If you're a new follower hello and this is what I'm here for 🦋
November 28, 2024 at 11:03 PM
Reposted by Nicole Armos
“just a little more reading then I can start writing”
November 22, 2024 at 11:32 AM
The body of data supporting the need for public participation in a healthy democracy is growing.

This week I read preliminary findings from Impact Canada's TIDES study showing that only 12% of Canadians feel that people like them have a significant influence on politics.
November 22, 2024 at 5:23 PM
After years of being a very reluctant and disengaged member of Twitter/X, I'm enjoying getting to interact more on Bluesky!

Example- since here I can't "save" posts that I want to read later, I am instead "liking" them- which means you can browse my "to-read" pile on my profile
November 21, 2024 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Nicole Armos
My wonderful publishers at Haymarket Books
and I just made Hope in the Dark a free download for a week And yeah, I know I haven't been around much--three platforms is a lot, and I reach a lot of people on one and read a lot of key sources on the other. www.haymarketbooks.org/books/791-ho...
Hope in the Dark
Bestselling author Rebecca Solnit reminds us that activism has changed the world in remarkable ways.
www.haymarketbooks.org
November 8, 2024 at 10:33 PM
This evening as I painted with my daughters, I diverted their questions of "do you like it?" to "tell me the story of your painting." Wonderful worlds emerged.

As I start afresh on this platform, I invite you to join me and #tellyourstory in a brief thread. I'll start!
November 15, 2024 at 6:01 AM