Advisory, Collaborative and Scrutinizing Roles of Deliberative Mini-Publics

Maija Setälä

doi:10.3389/fpos.2020.591844

Abstract

The normative point of departure in this article is that mini-publics can “complement” representative democracy only if they enhance inclusive processes of mutual justification among elected representatives who are responsible for public decisions. This article distinguishes three different roles of mini-publics in representative decision-making. Mini-publics can be 1) advisory when they provide input for collective will-formation in the representative arena, 2) collaborative when they involve elected representatives in the deliberative process, 3) scrutinizing when they check representative decision-making. The article analyzes strengths and weaknesses of these roles of mini-publics. Advisory mini-publics are particularly vulnerable to “cherry-picking.” While collaborative uses of mini-publics may facilitate inclusive reason-giving among elected representatives, they entail risks of representative dominance. Scrutinizing use of mini-publics seem particularly promising from the normative perspective, but it requires a well-defined institutional framework. The article concludes that while there are ways to avoid problems emerging in these different roles, political context is crucial in terms of the deliberative impact of mini-publics.

Highlights

Deliberative mini-publics are specific forums designed to enhance inclusive deliberation among randomly selected citizens (Setälä and Smith 2018)
While the use of random sampling has become one of the defining characteristics of deliberative mini-publics, there are different views of whether it should be the only method of recruiting participants
The evaluation of mini-publics should be based on a procedural criterion of whether mini-publics help enhance the inclusive and good-quality deliberation among elected representatives

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Deliberative mini-publics are specific forums designed to enhance inclusive deliberation among randomly selected citizens (Setälä and Smith 2018). Drawing on the theory of deliberative democracy, I argue that mini-publics should be evaluated on procedural grounds or, more precisely, whether they enhance inclusive processes of mutual justification among elected representatives responsible for collective decisions. Those responsible for decisions, i.e. elected representatives, could directly engage in a deliberative process with a cross-section of the society In this model, randomly selected citizens would participate in parliamentary will-formation more directly. While the institutionalization of scrutinizing mini-publics or randomly selected second chambers may look like an excellent idea from the perspective of deliberative democracy, it may be a rather long shot in the context of representative democracies This is rather a practical challenge for the adoption of such institutions rather than a principled reason to object them

DISCUSSION

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT