Deliberative Mini-publics Research Articles

Expert hearings in mini-publics: How does the field of expertise influence deliberation and its outcomes?

One of key goals of deliberative mini-publics is to counteract expert domination in policymaking. Mini-publics can be expected to democratize expertise by providing citizens with good opportunities for weighing expert information. Yet, there are concerns about undue influence of experts even within mini-publics. We test these expectations by analysing data from an online mini-public organized in Finland in March 2021. The topic of deliberation was measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine whether experts’ field of specialization and the order of expert hearings had an impact on how participants’ views developed. We find that neither the field of expertise nor the order of hearings had systematic effects on participants’ perceptions on containment measures. The results suggest that interactive modes of expert hearings in mini-publics seem not to be prone to domination by experts.

The internal dynamics of “scaling up” deliberative mini-publics

Recent deliberative systems research has emphasized the need to “scale up” deliberative mini-publics by exploring connections between mini-publics and broader arenas of policymaking. Less is known, however, about how the policy environment in a state or region might itself influence a deliberative event. In this article, we set out to examine how the internal dynamics of mini-publics are affected by the scaling-up process of connecting to larger policymaking domains. To better understand how the external role of deliberation affects the internal dynamics, we analyze two notable cases of deliberative forums addressing public problems. In both cases, the 2017 Our Coastal Future Forum in South Carolina and the 2020 Oregon Citizens’ Assembly on coronavirus disease-19 recovery, citizen participants grappled with the challenge of scaling up to larger policy outcomes. We conduct a thematic analysis of transcripts from both events, focusing on how citizens discuss their role in influencing policy and talk about the potential for policy output from the mini-publics. The analysis reveals that the scaling-up process invites a pragmatic orientation within deliberation, centering on issues of efficiency, scope, and efficacy.

Constitutional amendment and public will formation: Deliberative mini-publics as a tool for consensus democracy

Abstract Constitutionalism is in the midst of both a participatory and a deliberative turn. In this article, we explore one aspect of this turn—the use of deliberative innovations to enhance constitutional amendment processes. Ireland has been cited as almost a paradigm case for such experimentation. We assess deliberative mini-publics’ potential as a tool for consensus democracy based on the experience and impact of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly that made recommendations for wholesale reform of Ireland’s abortion laws in 2018. We identify a “legislative-majority-plus” model for constitutional amendment deployed in most jurisdictions with master-text constitutions and on that basis, characterize constitutional amendment as an aspect of consensual, rather than competitive, democracy. Based on this understanding of the function of constitutional amendment processes, we argue that the Citizens’ Assembly played a significant role in the process of public will formation. In particular, it helped to generate political and public support for a particular form of liberalization—abortion on request within the first twelve weeks—and made it easier for legislators to avoid the incentives of electoral politics and formulate an amendment proposal that attracted wide support despite intense opposition. However, we raise concerns about the normative legitimacy of that impact, based on deficiencies in the representativeness of the Assembly, arguing that in order to be a tool for will formation, rather than manipulation, in respect of constitutional amendment, deliberative mini-publics should be designed so as to enhance their representativeness.

Can the use of minipublics backfire? Examining how policy adoption shapes the effect of minipublics on political support among the general public.

Academics and practitioners are increasingly interested in deliberative minipublics and whether these can address widespread dissatisfaction with contemporary politics. While optimism seems to prevail, there is also talk that the use of minipublics may backfire. When the government disregards a minipublic's recommendations, this could lead to more dissatisfaction than not asking for its advice in the first place. Using an online survey experiment in Belgium (n = 3,102), we find that, compared to a representative decision-making process, a minipublic tends to bring about higher political support when its recommendations are fully adopted by the government, whereas it generates lower political support when its recommendations are not adopted. This study presents novel insights into whether and when the use of minipublics may alleviate or aggravate political dissatisfaction among the public at large.

The growing prominence of deliberative mini-publics and their impact on democratic government

ABSTRACT In the opening lines of Ruling the Void Peter Mair states that ‘[t]he age of party democracy has passed’. In his eyes political parties are failing and with them democracy itself. This paper addresses Mair’s concerns about the state of democracy. We review the latest evidence on how democracies have been innovating over the past twenty years or more, with particular attention to reforms that seek to bring citizens into the heart of discussions about constitutional and institutional reforms and significant policy issues. We show how deliberative mini-publics are becoming a more common feature of democratic government today, and, in some instances, how they are being embedded into the democratic system. We assess the implications for the state of state of democratic government today.

Failed expectations: can deliberative innovations produce democratic effects in hybrid regimes?

Participation in deliberation in stable democracies produces effects which are beneficial for democracy, while the results of deliberative innovations in non-democracies are more ambiguous. This article contributes to the debate about the effects of participatory democratic innovations on attitudes, related to democratic commitments, political capacities and political participation, in the increasingly ubiquitous hybrid regimes. We present the evidence collected from the participants before and after deliberative mini publics (DMPs), held in Serbia in 2020. Serbia is an exemplary case of a recent wave of autocratization, which had led to it becoming a hybrid regime, and it had no track record of deliberative innovations. When conducting the mini publics, we introduced an innovation in the standard design, by including active citizens - representatives of local initiatives or social movements particularly interested in the issue of DMPs. We could not find evidence that the democratic innovation affected attitudes of participants regarding democratic commitments, political capacities and political participation. However, we did find that participants of the DMPs became less satisfied with the functioning of the democracy on the local level. We argue that the anti-democratic wider context of hybrid regimes can produce adverse effects when introducing participatory democratic innovations, at least when it comes to this specific dimension of political participation. We conclude with the suggestions for further research, and a call for consideration of the wider political context when designing democratic interventions in hybrid regimes.

Promises and challenges of deliberative and participatory innovations in hybride regimes: The case of two citizens’ assemblies in Serbia

A worrying trend of autocratization that has been spreading globally in recent years, has thrust forward a new wave of appeals for deliberative and participatory democracy as a remedy for the crisis. With a few exceptions, the majority of participatory and deliberative institutions were implemented in stable democracies. The efforts to institutionalize participatory and deliberative models are almost completely absent in Serbia and other Western Balkan countries. Yet, there has been a trend of citizen mobilization in the form of social movements and local civic initiatives, which are both a symptom of unresponsive and quite openly authoritarian institutions, as well as a potential pathway to democratization. The pace and scope of these developments in the undemocratic societies of the Western Balkan region, in terms of both bottom up and top-down democratic experimentation, call for a better understanding of their internal dynamics, and their social and political impact. Responding to this need, the articles in the special issue focus on social movement mobilizations and deliberative experimentation. To begin with, our introductory article focuses particularly on understanding the possible role deliberative institutions could have in hybrid regimes. It looks at the first two cases of deliberative mini publics (DMPs) ever organized in Serbia, analyzing their rationale, specific design, implementation, as well as considering the possible role deliberative institutions could play in the hybrid regime of Serbia.

Reconceptualizing and Improving Member Participation in Large Cooperatives: Insights from Deliberative Democracy and Deliberative Mini-Publics

Reconceptualizing and Improving Member Participation in Large Cooperatives: Insights from Deliberative Democracy and Deliberative Mini-Publics

Localization and Acceptance of Deliberative Mini-Publics: A Case Study of Municipalities in Tokyo Metropolis

Localization and Acceptance of Deliberative Mini-Publics: A Case Study of Municipalities in Tokyo Metropolis

Do Hostile Media Perceptions Constrain Minipublics? A Study of How Oregon Voters Perceive Citizens' Statements

The deliberative quality of a minipublic often depends on its ability to inform the opinions of a larger public. The Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) aims to do so by producing a Citizens’ Statement, which we conceptualize as a deliberative form of mass media. Like any mass media, this Statement can only influence public opinion to the extent that citizens consider it unbiased and credible. Hostile media perceptions often prevent favorable evaluations of media content, but no prior work has considered whether these perceptions could undermine the output of deliberative minipublics. To examine that possibility, we analyze online survey data on Oregon voters’ assessments of two 2014 Citizens’ Statements. Results showed that voters’ evaluations of the Statements were unaffected by hostile media perceptions. Assessments were more favorable when voters had confidence in their knowledge of the CIR’s design, process, and participants. Evaluations also were more favorable for those voters with greater faith in deliberation’s capacity to render considered judgments. We elaborate on these findings in our discussion section and consider their theoretical and practical implications for implementing minipublics and bolstering their deliberative quality.

If no vote, at least voice? The potential and limits of deliberative procedures for the creation of a more inclusive democracy

Our paper presents the results of the project If no vote, at least voice, conducted in the run-up to the municipal elections held in Vienna in 2020. It invited residents of the city who are not Austrian nationals and therefore ineligible to vote in municipal elections to raise issues with the political parties standing in the elections and garner responses from them. These issues were initially formulated by deliberative mini-publics. We discuss our findings against the backdrop of the – in no small measure socio-economically determined – increasing democratic deficit in contemporary migration societies. We also touch on the extent to which the Covid-19 crisis forced us to amend our procedures and exacerbated some of the challenges faced in this context.

Seeing Like a Citizen: How Being a Participant in a Citizens' Assembly Changed Everything I Thought I Knew about Deliberative Minipublics

This paper presents a participant-observation account of my experience as a randomly selected participant at a Citizens’ Assembly. I reflect on what the unique experience of ‘seeing like a citizen’ can add to accepted understandings and practices of mini-public deliberation. I find that the experience, though energising, exciting and ultimately hugely worthwhile, also upended many of my prior assumptions grounded in academic scholarship and previous experience as an observer, facilitator and organiser of such events. I draw on the experience to shed new light on the capacity of assembled citizens to: accurately reflect the concerns of the broader community; soberly digest and reflect on evidence; earnestly engage in reasoned argumentation with one another; carefully reach sophisticated or thought-through recommendations as a collective; or ultimately gain a broader sense of efficacy from their engagement as individuals. The point in making these observations is not to critique moves toward democratic innovation (or the specific Citizens’ Assembly I was a part of), but to push forward scholarship and practice to respond and adapt to these little considered challenges.

Institutionalizing deliberative mini-publics? Issues of legitimacy and power for randomly selected assemblies in political systems

ABSTRACT Randomly selected deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) are on the rise globally. However, they remain ad hoc, opening the door to arbitrary manoeuvre and triggering a debate on their future institutionalization. What are the competing proposals aiming at institutionalizing DMPs within political systems? I suggest three ways for thinking about institutionalization: in terms of temporality, of legitimacy and support, and of power and role within a system. First, I analyze the dimension of time and how this affect DMP institutional designs. Second, I argue that because sortition produces ‘weak representatives’ with ‘humility-legitimacy’, mini-publics hardly ever make binding decisions and need to rely on external sources of legitimacies. Third, I identify four institutional models, relying on opposing views of legitimacy and politics: tamed consultation, radical democracy, representative klerocracy and hybrid polyarchy. They differ in whether mini-publics are interpreted as tools: for legitimizing elected officials; to give power to the people; or as a mean to suppress voting .

When Governance Theory Meets Democratic Theory: The Potential Contribution of Cocreation to Democratic Governance

Abstract Building on recent public administration research on service coproduction and cocreation, this article draws out the democratic potential of new forms of collaborative governance between the democratic state and civil society. Within democratic theory, cocreation has many similarities with the concept of deliberative mini-publics, but it goes beyond a “talk-centric” view to emphasize the active role of civil society in creative problem-solving and public innovation. The article argues that combining insights and perspectives from both democratic theory and governance theory can provide stronger foundations for a participatory democracy that complements rather than replaces representative democracy. The article concludes with an exploration of some of the legitimation challenges that democratic cocreation might face in practice.

Deliberative Mini-Publics and the European Green Deal in Turbulent Times: The Irish and French Climate Assemblies

Innovative forms of deliberative democracy are gaining traction in governing responses to climate change in Europe and beyond. Proponents of deliberative democracy have drawn attention to its particular suitability for shaping responses to environmental challenges. Citizen engagement and participation is also a prominent feature of the European Green Deal. This article considers the relationship between turbulence and deliberative democracy in the context of climate transitions, exploring when and how such democratic innovations are likely to generate turbulence in the governance of climate transitions. A framework is developed that focuses on three important sets of characteristics of deliberative mini-publics (DMPs): (a) the nature of their formal mandates and the ways in which climate change is framed as a policy problem; (b) the nature of participation and the degree to which the participants are empowered to shape the deliberative processes in which they participate; and (c) the degree to which DMPs are coupled with relevant policymaking processes. This framework is used to explore two recent and high-profile cases of a particular type of DMP: citizens’ assemblies in Ireland and France. The article contributes to the literatures on turbulent governance and deliberative democracy by reflecting on key dimensions of DMPs from the analytical perspective of turbulent governance.

Engaged, Indifferent, Skeptical or Critical? Disentangling Attitudes towards Local Deliberative Mini-Publics in Four Western European Democracies

Democratic innovations, such as deliberative mini-publics, are designed to encourage public engagement in policymaking. They are increasingly being used to inform decision-making on the environment, climate change, and other sustainability issues. Research on support for democratic innovations has focused on identifying citizens in favor and understanding whether they are “enraged” or “engaged” with politics. However, this approach ignores potential differences between citizens expressing more (or less) positive attitudes towards democratic innovations. In an online vignette study, respondents from four Western European countries rated varying descriptions of a local mini-public, indicating both their support for the decision-making process and their willingness to get involved. Four distinct groups were identified based on a latent profile analysis: (1) those who are truly engaged, in that their support for mini-publics is reinforced by intentions to participate, correspond to one-third of citizens. Engaged deliberative democrats stand out as being more concerned about the environment than any other issue on the agenda; (2) the majority of citizens are indifferent, expressing neither positive nor negative inclinations towards mini-publics; (3) a group of “elitists” is skeptical of integrating citizens into policymaking despite intending to participate themselves; and finally (4), a small share of citizens was identified as critics, scoring low on both support and willingness to participate in a mini-public. The diversity of profiles points to the challenges of using deliberative mini-publics to address sustainability issues.

Citizen Tax Juries: Democratizing Tax Enforcement after the Panama Papers

Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant fiscal costs on democracies and exacerbate preexisting distributive and political inequalities. Yet much contemporary tax sheltering occurs within the letter of the law, rendering criminal sanctions ineffective. In response, I argue for the creation of Citizen Tax Juries, deliberative minipublics empowered to scrutinize tax avoiders, demand accountability, and facilitate concrete reforms. This proposal thus responds to the wider aspiration, within contemporary democratic theory, to secure more popular control over essential economic processes.

Do Voters Trust Deliberative Minipublics? Examining the Origins and Impact of Legitimacy Perceptions for the Citizens’ Initiative Review

Do Voters Trust Deliberative Minipublics? Examining the Origins and Impact of Legitimacy Perceptions for the Citizens’ Initiative Review

Politics at a distance: Infrastructuring knowledge flows for democratic innovation.

We study efforts at promoting deliberative mini-publics as a model of democracy. Our focus is on practices supporting the circulation of know-how for doing mini-publics. In this paper we center on the building of infrastructures for knowledge exchange in and around a network known as Democracy R&D. This is a network of mini-publics practitioners from around the world with the declared goal of adding momentum to democratic innovation by enhancing translocal connections, community building, and knowledge. We look at how the network is organized, how online communication platforms are installed, and how observatory devices draw dispersed practices together into a shared frame of mutual learning and collective action. How do such practices configure the ways in which knowledge can flow across sites? How do they constitute an instrument space, a translocal assemblage of knowing and doing democracy by means of deliberative mini-publics? Using concepts like scopic media and centers of calculation, we discuss these practices for how they enable and constrain the circulation of know-how, configure processes of mutual learning, shape the translocal innovation process, and thus, at a distance, also prefigure local ways of knowing and doing politics.

El sorteo como herramienta de innovación democrática: el potencial de los minipúblicos deliberativos

The sortition, historically used in classical Greece, seems to be facing a process of resurgence, in an attempt to alleviate citizen disaffection and to improve the functioning of representative systems. The main objective of this article is, precisely, to reflect on the use of the sortition and the potential of deliberative mini-publics, and to analyze whether or not they have the capacity to increase the degree of citizens’ in their representatives and institutions. It is concluded that there are certain conditions, which go through the implementation of random deliberative mini-publics, under which sortition could be combined with elections to try to alleviate citizen disaffection and to improve the functioning of representative systems.