Deliberative Setting Research Articles

Towards a circular economy and just transition to net-zero in rural Scotland: Resident perspectives on policy and practice

The circular economy and just transition are key dimensions of the sustainability challenges of the 21st century. These concepts are ambiguous and meanings differ among actors, sectors and contexts. This paper examines the circular economy and a just transition to net-zero in the Scottish context, where both are prominent in national policy discourses and central to the work of Zero Waste Scotland. It is based on qualitative research, co-designed with Zero Waste Scotland, to explore how rural residents in Scotland understand the circular economy and just transition, in their everyday lives and communities. This is an under-researched area and our findings add new knowledge useful for implementing sustainability policies in a rural context. Focus groups were carried out in three rural areas, engaging with a range of residents in a deliberative setting. The findings support the need for a more collaborative, whole systems approach that moves beyond siloed thinking and which focuses on local capacity and knowledge building for transitions to more sustainable rural communities.

Poorly designed deliberation: explaining the banlieues’ non-involvement in the Great Debate

In 2019, the French Government organized a wide public consultation named the Great Debate. Promoted as a deliberative practice that could bring together various segments of society, it was characterized by feeble involvement of the people living in the banlieues – densely populated, economically marginalized, socially deprived and ethno-culturally different peripheral areas of large cities. This article aims to explain the reasons for which people in the banlieues of Paris did not participate in the Great Debate. Drawing on in-depth interviews and one focus group conducted in the spring of 2019, we distinguish between four main causes of non-participation: the re-legitimation function of the debate, its lack of inclusiveness, mismatch of demands, and format of the deliberative setting.

Judging Technical Claims in Democratic Deliberation: A Rhetorical Analysis of Two Citizens’ Initiative Review Panels in Oregon

Average citizens face difficulty evaluating competing expert claims in the public sphere, and the complexity of policy issues threatens citizens’ autonomy in democratic governance. This study examines how participants in a rigorous deliberative setting judge technical claims, analyzing audio and transcripts from two intensive mini-public deliberations in the Citizens’ Initiative Review in Oregon. The results show how lay participants in these meetings rhetorically co-construct a standard of verifiability to evaluate expert claims. The study then reflects on what this emergent standard of judgment reveals about the potentials and pitfalls of lay deliberation concerning technical policy issues.

Does Democratic Innovation Reduce Bias? The G1000 as a New Form of Local Citizen Participation

ABSTRACT Since less well educated citizens are underrepresented in many forms of citizen participation, deliberative ‘mini-publics’ have been introduced as a democratic innovation to redress some of this inequality. Using data from eleven Dutch deliberative mini-publics (G1000s), this study shows that despite attempts to broaden the appeal of the mini-public, a clear educational bias in the output of the deliberations remains; the output largely reflects the wishes and preferences of the more highly educated. Themes like crime and safety, immigration and integration, which are important concerns for many citizens in their local communities, rarely made it onto the G1000 ‘Agenda for the City’. From a perspective of democratic legitimacy, this finding is worrisome. The paper concludes with some suggestions that combine the strength of a deliberative setting with equality and external democratic legitimacy to overcome this problem.

Reasoning in the valuation of health-related quality of life: A qualitative content analysis of deliberations in a pilot study.

BackgroundGroup deliberation can be a pathway to understanding reasons behind judgement decisions. This pilot study implemented a deliberative process to elicit public values about health‐related quality of life. In this study, participants deliberated scales and weights for a German adaption of the Short‐Form Six‐Dimension (SF‐6D) Version 2 from a public perspective.ObjectiveThis article examines the reasons participants stated for health state valuations and investigates the feasibility of eliciting public reasons for judgement decisions in a deliberative setting.MethodsThe 1‐day deliberation was guided by MACBETH as a method of multi‐criteria decision analysis and involved qualitative comparisons of SF‐6D health states and dimensions. Participants deliberated in parallel small groups and a subsequent plenary assembly. A qualitative content analysis was conducted to assess the value judgements and reasons behind them.ResultsA total of 34 students participated in the study. Common reasoning was the level of impairment, marginal benefit, possibility of adjustment and expectation satisfaction. While the small groups agreed on scales for the SF‐6D dimensions, the plenary assembly did not reach consensus on one scale and dimension weights. When dimensions were prioritized, these were pain and mental health.ConclusionsWhile no consented value set was derived, this pilot study presents a promising approach for eliciting public reasoning behind judgements on health state values. Furthermore, it demonstrates that participants consider diverse motives when valuing health‐related quality of life.

The influence of political knowledge on opinion polarization in citizen deliberation

ABSTRACTEmpirical studies show that people with high political knowledge tend to polarize more than others. Polarization refers to a process where one becomes more extreme in the direction of her or his original views. While some evidence supports this view, there is also contrasting evidence, rendering ambiguous conclusions. Discussing in a deliberative setting might alleviate polarization among participants independent of whether they are knowledgeable. We examine the association between knowledge and opinion polarization in a deliberative mini-public setting, focusing on two reasons that may account for the diverging results. First, we distinguish between two types of knowledge: general political knowledge, which concerns knowledge on general political processes and structures, and issue knowledge, which concerns factual knowledge on the specific discussed topic. Second, we examine whether the deliberative context moderates the linkage between knowledge and polarization. We use evidence from two deliberative experiments to examine these linkages. The topic of the first is nuclear power and energy policies and the second concerns immigration. Our results show that general political knowledge and individual level polarization are associated. However, the specific nature of the association is context-dependent and differs between the two types of political knowledge.

Dynamics of participation: Access, standing and influence in contested natural resource management

Although participative measures were introduced in 2001 to support dialogue on large carnivore presence and the aims and justifications of national predator policy, polarization has remained between pro-wolf groups promoting fauna diversity and the groups maintaining that rural Sweden is jeopardized by the reappearance of large carnivores. Through empirically investigating the participatory process itself, we address how the local environment of RPG members is situated in the deliberative setting of the groups. By taking account of the local community context, we emphasize that divergent perceptions of the local environment, together with the landscape as a context of relationships between those using its resources, form an informed basis for action. In sum, we examine how participatory voices can be supported and maintained given the existence of a contingent social situation in which particular interests, values, and norm systems meet.

Revealing preferences: Does deliberation increase ideological awareness among the less well educated?

AbstractResearch suggests that the rightist discourse on immigration appeals to left‐leaning citizens with lower levels of education. The opposite is, however, not true for right‐wing voters with lower educational levels, and this asymmetry leaves left‐wing parties at a disadvantage compared with the right on immigration and integration issues. Deliberative theory promises that discussion, information and reflection can promote a more balanced political discussion and a more enlightened citizen. This article assesses the extent to which deliberative polling increases the ideological awareness of citizens with lower educational levels. More specifically, it gauges the extent to which especially less well educated left‐wing voters – those whose attitudes research finds to be particularly out of tune with their ideological predispositions regarding immigration and integration – adjust their attitudes as a consequence of deliberate exposure to informational input and the presentation of two‐sided arguments. Use is made of unique data generated during the first European‐wide deliberative polling project, ‘EuroPolis’, held in 2009. The results indicate that less well educated left‐wing voters indeed have slightly more negative attitudes towards immigrants than leftist voters with secondary or post‐secondary educational levels. Turning to the micro‐mechanisms of attitude change in a deliberative setting, the analyses show that both levels of education and ideological predispositions play a role in the extent to which participants of the deliberative poll adjust their attitudes. In three out of four models, evidence is found that less well educated left‐leaning citizens are indeed most likely to adjust their attitudes on immigration and integration after being presented with a more balanced discussion of the topic.

Accommodating Climate Change Science: James Hansen and the Rhetorical/Political Emergence of Global Warming

ArgumentDr. James Hansen's 1988 testimony before the U.S. Senate was an important turning point in the history of global climate change. However, no studies have explained why Hansen's scientific communication in this deliberative setting was more successful than his testimonies of 1986 and 1987. This article turns to Hansen as an important case study in the rhetoric of accommodated science, illustrating how Hansen successfully accommodated his rhetoric to his non-scientist audience given his historical conditions and rhetorical constraints. This article (1) provides a richer explanation for the rhetorical/political emergence of global warming as an important public policy issue in the United States during the late 1980s and (2) contributes to scholarly understanding of the rhetoric of accommodated science in deliberative settings, an often overlooked area of science communication research.

Framing a Deliberation. Deliberative Democracy and the Challenge of Framing Processes

Among both scholars and practioners, the critical importance of framing processes in the realm of deliberative democracy has been neither formally acknowledged nor adequately studied so far. The purpose of this theoretical article is to craft and define the analytical concepts and methodological tools necessary to shed light on this complex relationship. After introducing the notion of ‘deliberative frame’, which is examined across two distinct framing processes – ‘primary’ and ‘derivative’ (or secondary) – this article presents ‘deliberative frame analysis’ (DFA) as a qualitative method which can uncover the ‘meta-frame’ and the specific issue framings (or the deliberative ‘frames’) within a deliberation. This is achieved by examining selected elements both of the organizational context and information materials, and will be illustrated by the example of a famous deliberative poll carried out at European level. Finally, the introduction of authentically competing frames (i.e. ‘counterframes’ and not merely counterarguments) into the deliberative setting, along with the structural possibility for ‘reframing’ in the course of the deliberation, is indicated as a substantive precondition for neutralizing the overall framing effects and thus avoiding a heavily biased deliberation outcome. The article therefore offers a more comprehensive understanding of framing processes as a key challenge for deliberative politics, particularly as regards the legitimacy claims of its various experiments and practices, which are increasingly common in most established democracies.

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON?

Does deliberative setting, online versus face-to-face, influence citizens' experiences? Are certain factors differently influential in one setting than in the other? We draw on a nationally representative survey and identify citizens who participated in both online and face-to-face settings (n = 82). We use structural equation modeling to first assess the effects that deliberation format has on the interrelationship between such crucial factors as motivations to deliberate, perceived diversity, elicited emotions, enhanced understanding, and goal evaluation. We later employ network analysis to ask which factor or which cluster of factors is more central to an overall experience in which format. Relying on citizens who participated in both settings and using within-subject analyses, we assure that the previously unnoted findings are attributable to the format per se rather than to individual characteristics. We discuss the theoretical, practical and methodological implications.

Discursive power in deliberations: A case of redevelopment for the creative economy in the Netherlands

This paper examines the power of discourse in experiments with deliberative governance. It argues that discursive power enters deliberations regardless of the procedural attempts to ensure an optimal deliberative setting. This papers focuses on the experiences of a Community of Practice (CoP) that was created to redevelop old industrial sites for the creative economy in the Netherlands. To account for discursive power in these deliberations, it draws on the conceptual framework of “boundary work”. Boundary work involves drawing boundaries around discourse to gain credibility for an argument in a deliberation. This reinforces a discourse and reproduces its power. The empirical study demonstrates how actors relapsed into a dominant ‘entrepreneurship’ discourse but also disrupted it through an exploration of an alternative discourse called ‘cultural entrepreneurship’. This exploration was facilitated by deliberative procedures in combination with the content of boundary-transcending concepts.

Rethinking Democratic Deliberation: The Limits and Potential of Citizen Participation

At a time when the western democracies are plagued by increasing political alienation and social fragmentation, political theorists and practioners have embraced a more deliberative approach to democratic governance. The sense of this approach and the political practice it encourages depend on a number of key assumptions regarding the capacities and inclinations of individuals and how they will engage one another in a deliberative setting. Drawing on theory and research in social and developmental psychology, I argue that these assumptions are incorrect. The aim here is not to reject the deliberative view, but to reconstruct it. A more adequate view of cognition, emotion and communication, one that emphasizes the social dimension of individual capacities and orientations, is presented. This leads to a reconsideration of the democratic values of autonomy and equality, and how best to institutionalize deliberative practices.

Experiences with the NUSAP system for multidimensional uncertainty assessment

This paper discusses recent experiences with the NUSAP system for multidimensional uncertainty assessment, based on case studies that vary in complexity. We show that the NUSAP method, and especially the pedigree analysis part of it, is useful to assess not only parameter uncertainty but also to systematically reflect upon (model) assumptions and problem frames. A diagnostic diagram can be used to synthesize results of quantitative and qualitative analysis. It provides an analytic tool to prioritize uncertainties according to quantitative and qualitative insights in the limitations of available knowledge. We further show that extension of the pedigree scheme to include societal dimensions of uncertainty, such as problem framing and value-laden assumptions, further promotes reflexivity and collective learning. When used in a deliberative setting, NUSAP pedigree assessment has the potential to foster a deeper social debate and a negotiated management of complex environmental problems.

Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Measures of Uncertainty in Model‐Based Environmental Assessment: The NUSAP System

This article discusses recent experiences with the Numeral Unit Spread Assessment Pedigree (NUSAP) system for multidimensional uncertainty assessment, based on four case studies that vary in complexity. We show that the NUSAP method is applicable not only to relatively simple calculation schemes but also to complex models in a meaningful way and that NUSAP is useful to assess not only parameter uncertainty but also (model) assumptions. A diagnostic diagram can be used to synthesize results of quantitative analysis of parameter sensitivity and qualitative review (pedigree analysis) of parameter strength. It provides an analytic tool to prioritize uncertainties according to quantitative and qualitative insights in the limitations of available knowledge. We show that extension of the pedigree scheme to include societal dimensions of uncertainty, such as problem framing and value-laden assumptions, further promotes reflexivity and collective learning. When used in a deliberative setting, NUSAP pedigree assessment has the potential to foster a deeper social debate and a negotiated management of complex environmental problems.

Wege zur Solidarität

The recent strike movement in France has been seen either as a combat of public sector employees willing to save their material privileges or - in contrast - as a generalized political protest in defense of national institutions and against economic globalization. There was also !arge discord in the weakened French left about whether or not to support the movement. In this mticle it is argued that behind this discord we can see different conceptions of what should be leftist solidarity, each of them being restricted to one of its basic dimensions: the ethical and the utilitaristic one. lt will be shown that along these lines we find a deep cleavage between the academic and the syndicalistic part of the French left in which trade unions figure as social movcment organisations and therefore account for the political character of the strike movemcnt. Despite their structural capacity to enrich pattcms of group interest with ethical reasoning, these organisations fail in what has bccn offercd by thc course of the movement and scems tobe the only way out of crisis: that is confronting the two dimensions of solidarity in a deliberative setting of Ieftist politics.