Integrating conflict prevention tools into deliberative democracy online platforms

This paper presents a set of preliminary guidelines for conflict prevention developed within the EU-funded research project ORBIS (“Augmenting participation, co-creation, trust and transparency in Deliberative Democracy at all scales”) whose goal is developing online platforms that enable citizens to enhance their participation in democratic processes, through open discussions around important political topics. Based on previous research on communication and argumentation in conflict resolution discourse and on the empirical analysis of discussions around deliberative democracy topics, this paper highlights recurrent interpersonal communication problems that might occur in group discussions around complex topics and that, if not handled well, can lead to conflicts; and introduces a first proposal for solutions to help, both through technology and with the assistance of human moderations, participants in such discussions to avoid the development and the escalation of conflicts.