Deliberative citizenship drives transmission: as members make sense of their experience, they help to create pathways along which to transmit local knowledge. My analysis revealed four common dimensions of transmission--relational, linguistic, temporal and spatial--that interacted to shift power dynamics in the deliberative system to make transmission possible. These dimensions suggest that transmission is not indirect. Rather, SCOs work hard "at the boundary" between civil society and the state--in deliberative forums and other arenas--to convince public officials to consider their environmental concerns, to design forums to empower affected publics, and to ground responsibility for environmental decisions in the deliberative system. These strategies explain important links between civil society and the state in deliberative politics.