Deliberative Mini-publics Research Articles

Deliberative mini-publics as learning schools for democracy? Examining deliberation impact on dissatisfied and radical participants of a citizens’ assembly in Poland

ABSTRACT In a global context of democratic challenges such as dissatisfaction and social polarization, research on Western European democracies suggests that deliberative democracy instruments like deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) may provide a solution with their positive impact on participants’ attitudes towards politics and democracy. Despite the proliferation of citizens’ assemblies, especially locally, little is known about DMPs in newer democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, and it is uncertain whether the findings about the virtues of deliberation would hold. This study assesses the impact of a mini-public in Poland, focusing on the Citizens’ Assembly on Energy Poverty, the country's first national-level deliberative initiative. Poland has faced heightened political dissatisfaction due to eight years of right-wing populist governance and the rise of radical ideologies, raising questions about deliberation's impact on dissatisfied and radical participants. Our results confirm the positive impact of deliberation on participants, improving their percepetion of knowledge, political interest, efficacy, and support for mini-publics. However, we find no significant differences of deliberation between dissatisfied, radical participants, and other groups highlighting the universal benefits of deliberation. These inconclusive findings may be due to a common recruitment bias in DMPs, specifically enrolling politically engaged citizens, thus limiting the potential for a learning curve.

Empowered Minipublics for Democratic Renewal? Evidence from Three Conjoint Experiments in the United States, Ireland, and Finland

This article investigates the potential of deliberative minipublics to provide a new set of institutions for democratic renewal. Using three preregistered and identical conjoint experiments in the United States, Ireland, and Finland, it first shows that minipublics are moderately attractive institutional innovations, but that in all three country contexts, citizens in general are very reluctant to grant them empowerment and autonomy as well as ask for additional provisions (such as large size or large majorities for recommendations). Subgroup analyses, however, reveal that especially participation in minipublics as well as trust in other citizens as decision-makers in combination with low political trust produces more support for empowered and autonomous minipublics. But what stands out in the empirical analysis is that most citizens want minipublics as additions to the representative system, not as a replacement of the existing democratic infrastructure, as some minipublic advocates have suggested.

Hacking democratic innovations: the problem of agency in deliberative systems

ABSTRACT Empowering citizens through democratic innovations has long been a central goal of government intervention. Despite the transformative rhetoric that has accompanied their implementation, democratic innovations have gained support and political presence, however, while moving away from public decision-making processes. A recent example are deliberative mini-publics. The problem has to do with a conception that relativizes the agency of citizens in political systems, an issue that is very visible in the systemic turn of deliberation. From this perspective, agency is diluted in a dynamic of interconnected deliberative settings far from the decision-making centers. The objective of this essay is to analyze a hybrid deliberative framework conceived from the outset around the political agency of citizens. We show how deliberation can improve participatory systems, without needing to replace agency with diffuse communicative mediation. To do this, we analyze the successes and failures of its implementation in the city of Madrid.

An Effect of Storytelling on Attitude Changes in Deliberative Mini-Publics

This study aims to explore the relationship between opinion changes and the quality of deliberation in deliberative polls, focusing on the impact of storytelling. Deliberative mini-publics have gained considerable attention as a form of deliberative democracy. While deliberative democracy emphasises the importance of changing participants’ preferences through rational discourse, the existence of a link between opinion changes and deliberation quality has not been thoroughly examined. Furthermore, the influence of alternative forms of communication, such as storytelling, on attitude changes has not yet been investigated. Using data from a deliberation event modelled after a deliberative poll, we conducted a multiple regression analysis to examine the factors that contribute to individual attitude changes, using ‘Opinions,’ ‘Reasons,’ and ‘Personal experience’ as explanatory variables, coded and scored by an index according to the Discourse Quality Index. Our findings revealed that personal experience significantly affected individual opinion changes, although the effect and its direction were inconsistent and contradictory, depending on specific aspects of attitudes. While prior studies have focused on the exchange of reasoned opinions to examine the relationship between opinion changes and deliberation quality, our research suggests that personal storytelling may have an impact on preference changes.

Disrupting deliberation? The impact of the pandemic on the social practice of deliberative engagement

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted established ways of doing democracy. This was particularly the case for citizens’ assemblies that have been increasingly commissioned by public authorities to help tackle complex policy problems. The social restrictions adopted in response to the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the ‘deliberative wave’, making the in-person participation of citizens’ assemblies unviable. It forced deliberative practitioners to rethink their standard mode of operation. In this paper, we adopt social practice theory to make sense of how the meanings, competencies and materials associated with the practice of deliberative mini-publics were challenged and, at times, reformulated as practitioners were forced to adapt to digital delivery. Our findings highlight that while aspects of deliberative practice such as inclusivity were rethought, the established identity and competencies of practitioners played a constraining role in the choices and applications of technology.

Fair Enough? Mini-Public Composition and Outcome Acceptance from the Maxi Public

One hope associated with the spread of deliberative mini-publics in established democracies is that they could increase acceptance of policies because of their inclusive and diverse composition. Yet, participants are not representative of the broader public in all characteristics. They tend to be more engaged with politics or debated policy issues than the average population. Building on a Climate Citizens’ Assembly commissioned by the Luxembourg government in 2022 (Klima Biergerrot-KBR), this study examines how the maxi public reacts when informed about the profile of mini-public participants. Via a survey experiment, we found that descriptive representation and similarity matter to accept the outcomes, but not universally. It depends on respondents’ attitudes about mini-publics prior to the experiment and situations of cognitive dissonance. Indeed, when people initially neutral or opposed to mini-publics (‘participatory skeptics’) learn that the process is fairly representing (their in-) groups, they increase their willingness to accept the outcomes, stressing improvement in the perceived legitimacy. By contrast, the lack of social inclusion and political diversity is an issue to keep the ‘participatory enthusiasts’ on board, stressing that they also pay attention (and perhaps even more) to how and which groups of citizens are represented within a mini-public. Our message is that deliberative mini-publics need to address more thoroughly how they can best meet their normative assumptions of participatory equality and procedural fairness; otherwise, they may not help to foster political legitimacy.

The British Political Tradition and Constitutional Policy: The Offer of Deliberative Mini Publics

Abstract The Review of the UK Constitution was an eighteen-month project assessing the functioning of the UK constitution resulting in a set of practical, innovative, and robust recommendations. This article draws out one theme from this research, the offer of Deliberative Mini Publics (DMPs) in the process of constitutional change in the UK. Using Marsh, Richards, and Smith’s ‘Asymmetric Power Model’ as a mechanism for understanding the centralised and top–down nature of British democracy, we argue that the integration of DMPs can offer an opportunity to mitigate some of the core problems with the functioning of the UK constitution and produce better constitutional policy.

Governance of deliberative mini-publics: emerging consensus and divergent views

Deliberative mini-publics are forums for citizen deliberation composed of randomly selected citizens convened to yield policy recommendations. These forums have proliferated in recent years but there are no generally accepted standards to govern their practice. Should there be? We answer this question by bringing the scholarly literature on citizen deliberation into dialogue with the lived experience of the people who study, design and implement mini-publics. We use Q methodology to locate five distinct perspectives on the integrity of mini-publics, and map the structure of agreement and dispute across them. We find that, across the five viewpoints, there is emerging consensus as well as divergence on integrity issues, with disagreement over what might be gained or lost by adapting common standards of practice, and possible sources of integrity risks. This article provides an empirical foundation for further discussion on integrity standards in the future.

Epistemic Injustice in Deliberative Mini Publics

The foundational principles of deliberation rest on citizens meeting as political and moral equals. If wetake them seriously, we need to consider the exclusion that arises from power asymmetries. These canlead to some groups being absent from decision-making processes, but often they are excluded evenwhen they are present. This exclusion can be conceptualised as internal exclusion, which is the way inwhich some people—typically members of marginalised groups—speak and are heard and believed less inpolitical communication. In this article, I make two claims. First, I argue that we should distinguish twokinds of internal exclusion: symbolic and epistemic. While symbolic internal exclusion describes the wayin which some groups are greeted and acknowledged differently than others, epistemic internal exclusionhappens when some people are believed and heard less. I will argue that the latter conception can befleshed out most productively with theories of epistemic injustice, as this body of work considers thespecifically epistemic dimension of systems of oppression. To illustrate the benefits of this approach, I willapply it to deliberative mini-publics, which are becoming increasingly institutionalised and consequentlyhave a greater influence on public policy. The three design features I discuss are group composition andfacilitation, agenda setting and choice of experts, and the relationship between rhetoric and persuasion.I will show how the epistemic internal exclusion perspective helps to analyse and identify the aspects ofdeliberative practice that exclude marginalised groups from influencing the discussion and the outcomesfairly.

Setting the agenda for climate assemblies. Trade-offs and guiding principles

ABSTRACT Citizens’ assemblies on climate change are increasingly popular to support democratic decision-making. Such Climate Assemblies (CAs) convene representative groups of citizens formulating policy proposals after hearing experts and deliberating intensely. CAs may help addressing climate policy issues more effectively partly because their members need not worry about re-election. CAs’ effectiveness depends on their design such as the issues chosen (or not chosen) for deliberation. Agenda-setters exert substantial power by selecting certain issues and by choosing framings that benefit some solutions over others. In this paper I ask: What characterizes agendas that are suitable and legitimate for deliberation in CAs? The aim is to support practitioners in making informed agenda choices for CAs by providing a list of ten widely accepted guiding principles based on expert interviews, policy documents, and information gathered from the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA). The paper systematically discusses trade-offs of various agenda choices in the light of different CA rationales. Results show that those with system-supporting rationales tend to favour narrower agendas tailored to political demands aiming to increase immediate policy impact; those with system-disrupting rationales prefer more open agendas allowing citizens to challenge existing political practices and worldviews. Results support earlier arguments that distinctions of entire deliberative processes in either top-down or bottom-up are too simplistic and that a tool-box approach is more useful. Insights appear relevant for debates of deliberative minipublics more generally. Future research should investigate whom to involve in setting CA agendas and with how much power.

Deliberative mini-publics as a Confucian institution

This article constructs a positive case for deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) from the perspective of contemporary Confucian political philosophy. Extant empirical and normative studies of DMPs have treated them primarily as a concrete way to instantiate the deliberative conception of legitimacy advocated by Western political philosophers such as John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas. Almost no attention has been paid to how certain non-Western philosophies like Confucianism could provide different understandings of such an institutional innovation. The article fills this gap by exploring why DMPs should be incorporated into the two ideal types of regimes considered by today’s Confucian political philosophers, Confucian democracy and Confucian political meritocracy. In this regard, it makes an original contribution to both the field of democratic theory and the emerging paradigm of Confucian public administration.

Can we do inclusive politics in urgent times?

In times of crisis it is even more important to ensure that political decisions have broad, popular and trusted support from a wide range of people than in normal, non-crisis times. We argue that the best way to achieve this is through the use of deliberative mini-publics, as leaving a crisis response only to our political leaders presents them with almost irresistible opportunities for the arrogation of power, possible corruption, and the use (or abuse) of emergency measures for partisan political point scoring. Having demonstrated the theoretical basis for our argument, which builds on the foundation of deliberative democratic theory, we then address the practical aspects of using informed deliberation within a mini-public during a crisis, when efficacy and speed are the most urgent and challenging aspects of decision making. The obvious solution, to us, is to institutionalize deliberative mini-publics in our democratic structures so that they are ready and able to rapidly address any crisis as it arises.

Fostering Reasoning in the Politically Disengaged: The Role of Deliberative Minipublics

Political engagement is vital to the functioning of democratic systems, yet a significant portion of the population remains disengaged from conventional political activities as voting. These individuals often lack the opportunities and motivation to cultivate their reasoning abilities for understanding politics. This study explores the potential of deliberative minipublics to foster the development of reasoning skills among those excluded from the political discourse. By focusing on individuals with low levels of political engagement, the study investigates three minipublics on the topic of climate change in Switzerland. Utilizing the Deliberative Reason Index, the analysis uncovers how dialogue-driven engagement can enhance political understanding and involvement. The results demonstrate the potential of deliberative practices to bridge the gap between the politically disengaged and the complex world of political participation, offering fresh insights into citizens’ capabilities to deliberate on intricate issues.

Democratizing food systems: A scoping review of deliberative mini-publics in the context of food policy

Deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) have attracted growing attention from both researchers and practitioners in recent years. Their purpose is to assemble random groups of citizens, representing a cross section of society, in order to engage in discussions about policy issues and formulate recommendations. During these sessions, partici­pants are exposed to contrasting perspectives from experts and engage in respectful internal delibera­tions, facilitated by organizers, before arriving at a carefully considered joint policy position on the topic at hand. DMPs are grounded in the belief that citizen involvement and input are essential if policy reforms are to be perceived as legitimate by the public. In the agri-food domain, they represent an innovative way to rebuild public trust in the food system, allowing citizens to reshape food policy in alignment with their values and concerns. In this study, we conducted a scoping review of the literature to assess the contexts in which food-related DMPs emerge, as well as their organiza­tional characteristics, procedural qualities, and results. We identified a total of 24 case studies, revealing significant diversity between DMPs in terms of their policy themes, formats, and recruitment and decision-making procedures. In terms of results, participants reported that attend­ing the DMP had been a positive experience and had increased their awareness of, and ability to engage in, food policy debates. However, only a handful of DMPs led to documented policy reforms. We argue that greater emphasis should be placed on post-deliberation activities and dialogues if DMPs are to make a meaningful impact and contribute to the democratization of food systems.

Towards Multilingual Deliberative Democracy: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities

ABSTRACT In the present article, I offer a theoretical and explorative overview of the relationship between deliberative democracy and multilingualism to claim that multilingualism is an asset for deliberative democracy. I argue that the traditional approaches to deliberative democracy have often overlooked the importance of linguistic diversity, partially due to the dominant narrative of the prerequisite of a common language for – deliberative – democracy. This paper examines why it is worthwhile to reconcile democratic deliberation and multilingualism, exploring the benefits and challenges of integrating linguistic pluralism into deliberative democracy. By unpacking the positive impacts of embracing multilingualism and providing insights into suggestive possibilities on how deliberative mini-publics can best accommodate multilingualism, I advocate for a more robust and inclusive deliberative democratic framework.

The consensus-clarifying role of deliberative mini-publics in constitutional amendment: A reply to Oran Doyle and Rachael Walsh

Abstract Oran Doyle and Rachael Walsh’s article “Constitutional Amendment and Public Will Formation: Deliberative Mini-Publics as a Tool for Consensus Democracy” is a welcome addition to the literature on Ireland’s efforts to integrate deliberative citizen-involved structures into its constitutional amendment process. We agree that the Citizens’ Assembly on abortion played a role in shaping the legal position that ultimately emerged in Irish law; we disagree, however, with the authors’ account of how that occurred. In particular, we do not believe the Irish experience supports the claim that deliberative mini-publics help to build the consensus for constitutional amendment. On the contrary, on each occasion where amendment processes incorporating a deliberative element have succeeded in Ireland, there has been clear evidence of an enduring pre-existing public consensus over the core of the amendment proposed. We suggest that the potential value of deliberative mini-publics might more accurately be seen as one of consensus-clarifying rather than consensus-building. While a mini-public may be unlikely to create a novel constitutional consensus, it can have a significant—potentially causal—role in converting a general and disparate desire for change into a specific form. That, in our view, is what occurred with the repeal and replacement of Ireland’s constitutional position on abortion. We argue that a careful analysis of the process provides tangible evidence that the Assembly affected the outcome in clear and specific ways: its significant impact was not in creating a constitutional consensus that had previously been absent, but rather, we argue, in putting on the agenda, and coalescing support around, a specific form of legal change.

Assessing the influence and legitimacy of citizen deliberation on abortion: A rejoinder to Eoin Carolan and Seána Glennon

Abstract This article responds to the two key arguments presented by Eoin Carolan and Seána Glennon in their reply to our article: that the Citizens’ Assembly on abortion had a “consensus-clarifying” function rather than a “consensus-building” function in respect of the Irish constitutional amendment on abortion in 2018; and that participation in deliberative mini-publics should be compulsory, like jury service. We argue that the distinction drawn by Carolan and Glennon does not assist in understanding constitutional amendment processes, as the consensus required for a constitutional amendment must be fully formed, in respect of a specific amendment. We contend that the Irish Citizens’ Assembly assisted the formulation of that consensus in respect of abortion reform in Ireland. We argue that compulsory participation risks distorting the discursive environment that is essential to an effective and legitimate deliberative mini-public, and could fail to ensure the desired representativeness if exceptions to participation were allowed in certain circumstances.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Deliberation in Legal Setting

Deliberation is an increasingly used concept in Argumentation Theory and Linguistic Analysis. But only recently research combined empirical and conceptual tool-boxes from these disciplines for the study of deliberative discourse. The aim of this article is to present a discursive analysis of deliberation as a genre using the relational pragmatic analysis of texts. In particular, we want to see whether different features of deliberation genre map onto relational pragmatic dimension of texts. To do so, authors analyze, in the framework of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), the relational discourse structure of legal speeches of argumentative micro-texts written by citizens participating in a series of deliberative mini-publics. Results suggest that genre affects the relational to pragmatic analysis of texts and that we could analyze this effect in RST. Finally, we present, to our knowledge, the first annotated corpus-based genre analysis of the relational pragmatic dimension of argumentative micro texts.

The perceived legitimacy of deliberative minipublics: taking the perspective of polarized citizens – CORRIGENDUM

The perceived legitimacy of deliberative minipublics: taking the perspective of polarized citizens – CORRIGENDUM

Holding this space: navigating ethical issues in citizen deliberation

AbstractDeliberative mini-publics convene a randomly selected group of citizens to deliberate on a policy issue and generate recommendations for decision makers. A rich field of research and practice has focused on the quality of deliberation and its ideal conditions. As a result, we know what works. But we also need to know what conditions and issues prevent practice from achieving these best practices in the real world. I pursue this line of enquiry through a qualitative thematic analysis of interviews with 25 deliberative practitioners, who are responsible for the design and delivery of deliberative mini-publics. Existing research problematises practitioners’ relationship to commissioning authorities and the tension between commercial and democratic ideals. I find that, counter to previous research, practitioners have the capacity to push back against pressure from commissioners. This paper presents ethical issues encountered during the commissioning, design and implementation of mini-publics. Some practitioners believe that ethical issues can be mitigated through adapting deliberative designs, whilst others feel the limitations of their agency in a context where they are commissioned to deliver a service. These findings demonstrate the reflexivity of practitioners in the deliberative mini-publics community and advance understanding of the ethics and governance of deliberative mini-publics.