John Gastil

Personal website

Appointments

Associate Professor, Department of Communication, 2001 to present.

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, 1998 to 2001.

Research Manager, Institute for Public Policy, Fall 1994 to 1997.

Lecturer, Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico, 1996.

Teaching Assistant & Lecturer, Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall 1989 to Spring 1992 and Fall 1993 to Spring 1994.

Education

Swarthmore College, High Honors in Political Science with a Minor in Economics, B.A., 1989.

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Communication Arts, M.A., 1991.

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Communication Arts, Ph.D., 1994.

Selected Project-Related Publications

Gastil, J., & Levine, P. (Eds.) (2005). The deliberative democracy handbook: Strategies for effective civic engagement in the twenty-first century. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Gastil, J., Deess, E. P., & Weiser, P. (2002). Civic awakening in the jury room: A test of the connection between jury deliberation and political participation. Journal of Politics, 64, 585-595.

Burkhalter, S., Gastil, J., & Kelshaw, T. (2002). The self-reinforcing model of public deliberation. Communication Theory, 12, 398-422.

Gastil, J. (2000). By popular demand: Revitalizing representative democracy through deliberative elections. Berkeley, CA: University of California.

Gastil, J., & Dillard, J. P. (1999). Increasing political sophistication through public deliberation. Political Communication, 16, 3-23.

Gastil, J. (1993). Democracy in small groups: Participation, decision making, and communication. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.

Gastil, J., & Dillard, J. P. (1999). The aims, methods, and effects of deliberative civic education through the National Issues Forums. Communication Education, 48, 179-192.

Gastil, J. (1993). Identifying obstacles to small group democracy. Small Group Research, 24, 5-27.

Gastil, J. (1992). A definition of small group democracy. Small Group Research, 23, 278-301.

Related Activities

• I have maintained an ongoing relationship with the Kettering Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that promotes democratic civic practices throughout the world.
• I assisted the New Mexico Transportation and Highway Department with its efforts to obtain more deliberative public input into transportation planning. Working together in 1997, we developed the Citizen Conference model of public deliberation, which created a means for the general public to assist the Department in designing a long-term transportation budget.