bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Five Assumptions Academics Make About Public Deliberation, And Why They Deserve Rethinking
Authors: Lee Caroline W.
Published: May 2020

Academic research on public dialogue and deliberation is abundant and sophisticated. This body of multi-disciplinary scholarship draws on the insights of political theory and case studies, such that much is known about the promise and practical nuances of designing engagement processes with authentically deliberative outcomes. The socio-historical and institutional contexts in which public deliberation is organized and practitioners make their living are less well-studied. This article uses a multi-method study of deliberation as a strategic action field (SAF) in order to reconsider common assumptions about deliberation practice. Based on practitioners’ shared experiences and everyday struggles, I challenge researchers to develop deeper analyses of 1) change and power, 2) reproduction of inequality, 3) stability and settlement, 4) markets and politics, and 5) crises and opportunities in the field. Given expanding demand for deliberative remedies and converging strategies and discourses across related SAFs, this new research agenda is a timely addition to both deliberation scholarship and comparative historical sociology.
Learning from Your Neighbor: The Value of Public Participation Evaluation For Public Policy Dispute Resolution
Authors: Stephens John B. , Berner Maureen
Published: May 2020

Public policy dispute resolution [PPDR] and public participation [PP] are closely related fields of practice. Despite many similarities, we identify gaps in most evaluation studies conducted in the two fields. Evaluators of PPDR can better draw upon PP evaluations.The values, concepts, objectives, and practices of PP and PPDR are compared for similarities and differences. Focusing on the last 15 years, PPDR and PP evaluation literature is analyzed, with attention to four PP evaluation studies of special relevance to PPDR. Five ways that PPDR evaluation can be improved by drawing on PP evaluation studies are identified. Two promising works that begin to bridge the PPDR-PP evaluation gap are summarized.
Cultivating Deliberation for Democracy
Authors: van Gelder Tim
Published: May 2020

Diamond’s Liberation Technology describes how new communication technologies can help bring about democracy, but not how they can help improve an existing democracy. One natural idea is that technologies developed specifically for improving deliberation might help improve in quantity and quality the public deliberation required for a healthy democracy. To date, this has failed to happen; deliberation technologies have not been taken up by the public to any significant degree. I suggest that this is because such technologies have taken the wrong approach, imposing too much structure on deliberative discourse. An alternative is to “cultivate” better deliberation. This approach is taken by YourView, a new kind of virtual forum, which aims to enhance democracy by providing an opportunity for citizens easily access key arguments on major issues, take a stand on those issues, and help shape the “collective wisdom” - the considered collective view. By identifying when participants exhibit “epistemic virtues,” and rewarding such behaviors, it encourages rather than imposes better-quality deliberation.
Public Deliberation in Health Policy and Bioethics: Mapping an emerging, interdisciplinary field
Authors: Abelson Julia , Blacksher Erika A. , Li Kathy K. , Boesveld Sarah E. , Goold Susan D.
Published: May 2020

For over two decades, the “deliberative turn” has rooted itself in the fields of health policy and bioethics, producing a growing body of deliberation in action and associated academic scholarship. With this growing use and study of citizen deliberation processes in the health sector, we set out to map this dynamic field to highlight its diversity, interdisciplinarity, stated and implicit goals and early contributions. More specifically, we explored how public deliberation (PD) is being experimented with in real-world health settings, with a view to assessing how well it is meeting current definitions and common features of PD. Our review provides an informative and up-to-date set of reflections on the relatively short but rich history of public deliberation in the health sector. This emerging, interdisciplinary field is characterized by an active community of scholars and practitioners working diligently to address a range of bioethics and health policy challenges, guided by a common but loosely interpreted set of core features. Current definitions and conceptualizations of public deliberation’s core features would benefit from expansion and refinement to both guide and respond to practice developments. Opportunities for more frequent cross-disciplinary and theory-practice exchange would also strengthen this field.
What did we learn about citizen involvement in the health policy process: lessons from Brazil
Authors: Coelho Vera Schattan Pereira
Published: May 2020

In this paper I argue that citizen involvement helped to promote a more equitable distribution of public health services in Brazil. This achievement involved a balance of contributions from social actors and health system managers in forging policy innovations and institutional arrangements that linked bottom up innovation with national policy leveraging and decentralized implementation. The paper briefly describes this cycle and its relation with the implementation of a national network of forums for citizen involvement in health policy, inquiring in more detail the conditions that favor the association between these forums and the policy making process. Our results do not corroborate the idea that deliberative arenas should be insulated from political passions; rather, they suggest that participation of mobilized social actors contributes to the effectiveness of these forums. This contribution happens both due to the knowledge that these actors bring about problems in the area and to their insertion in networks that connect forums to a wide set of social organizations and political, governmental, and health institutions, which in turn facilitate the dissemination and negotiation of the proposals and demands formulated by the forums. However, our results also suggest that the inclusion of these actors increases confrontation to the detriment of deliberation, which brings us to the discussion of the role that could be played by mediators who are well-equipped to construct deliberative processes.
Plebiscite Deliberations: Self-Determination & Deliberative Democracy in Guam
Authors: Na’puti Tiara R. , Hahn Allison H.
Published: May 2020

In 2015, Guåhan (Guam), an unincorporated territory of the United States, could hold a plebiscite to determine its political status. This self-determination plebiscite will give the electorate the opportunity to deliberate on one of three internationally recognized political plans for the future: Statehood, Independence or Free Association. This monumental event has received little attention in the United States, with little media coverage appearing despite the recent self-determination plebiscites held around the world (e.g., Puerto Rico and the Falkland Islands). Nonetheless, the U.S. has a large stake in this election process. The people of Guåhan are U.S. citizens, yet are simultaneously denied full voting rights in U.S. presidential elections. Thus, the opportunities for political participation on Guåhan are based upon a dependent relationship with the U.S. Moments of political participation in Guåhan occur primarily through actions that both depend upon and reinforce communicative channels directed against the U.S. nation-state. The phenomenon of political dependency creates a complex situation for public deliberation amongst the Guåhan electorate. Even in Guåhan there is much confusion, contradiction, and deliberation concerning plebiscite eligibility and the ballot initiatives on the political status options. Thus, we propose a process of public deliberation, facilitated through educational programming, to analyze the arguments for each plebiscite plan and encourage even wider public deliberation. Drawing from a rich international tradition of school debate and deliberative voting guide reforms, we develop a detailed proposal aimed at both increasing voter education and turnout in the Pacific. Our proposal also stresses the pressing need for more communication scholarship on the political connections between the U.S. and Guåhan.
A 35-Year Experiment in Public Deliberation
Authors: Mathews David
Published: May 2020

In the late 1970s, a small group of academics and former government officials began an initiative that led to the creation of a network of National Issues Forums (NIF) in 1981. NIF-style deliberation is based on the assumption that the greatest challenge in collective decision making is dealing with the tensions that result when many of the things most people hold dear are brought into conflict by the necessity to act on a problem. Public deliberation is a naturally occurring phenomenon that makes use of the human faculty for judgment. The most powerful insight from the NIF experiment has been the recognition that democracy depends on constant learning and that deliberation is a form of learning.
What We’re Talking About When We Talk About the “Civic Field” (And why we should clarify what we mean)
Authors: Leighninger Matt
Published: May 2020

The field of public engagement is experiencing a harmful identity crisis. While advocates of public participation may all agree that our work relates somehow to democracy, we have not established or articulated a common vision of what that really means. This lack of clarity has dire consequences, producing rifts between academics and practitioners, community organizers and deliberative democrats, civic technologists and dialogue practitioners, policy advocates and consensus-builders. Worst of all, the lack of clarity about democracy provides no help to people who are trying to create sustainable, participatory political systems in Egypt, Thailand, Ukraine, and many other countries. None of the participatory tactics and assets we have developed will reach their full potential if we don’t admit, to ourselves and the world, their true significance: these aren’t just props for conventional processes, but building blocks for new political systems.
The Unfulfilled Promise of Online Deliberation
Authors: Hartz-Karp Janette , Sullivan Brian
Published: May 2020

Since online deliberation has not delivered on the expectations of more considered, democratic participation, the authors propose less focus on technological ‘fixes’ and more on re-conceptualizing its primary purpose to gathering resonance in an authentic public square. The ideas that emerge can then be deliberated in representative face-to-face public deliberations, with the coherent voice that results contributing to more inclusive, legitimate, and implementable democratic decision-making.
Beyond Deliberation: A Strategy for Civic Renewal
Authors: Levine Peter
Published: May 2020

To expand opportunities for discussion and reflection about public issues, we should look beyond the organizations that intentionally convene deliberations and also enlist organizations that preserve common resources, volunteer service groups, civics classes, grassroots public media efforts, and partisan, ideological, and faith-based movements that have some interest in discussion. Many of these groups are not politically neutral; more are adversarial. But they have a common interest in confronting the forces and decisions that have sidelined active citizens in countries like the US. They are all threatened by the rising signs of oligarchy in the United States. Collectively, they have considerable resources with which to fight back. It is time for us to begin to stir and organize--not for deliberation, but for democracy.
The Design of Online Deliberation: Implications for Practice, Theory and Democratic Citizenship
Authors: Manosevitch Idit
Published: May 2020

The essay focuses on the role of design in online deliberation, and outlines three directions for future research. First, research must embed the study of the technical and organizational architecture of online discussion spaces, as an ongoing area of inquiry. Scholars need to take stock of varying available design choices and their potential effects on the deliberative quality of online public discourse. Second, looking more broadly, research must examine the design of deliberative processes as they manifest themselves via digital technologies. The author discusses the importance of surveying the broad array of processes that are currently employed, and the varying theoretical assumptions that they convey. Third, the essay concludes with an outline of possible implications that online deliberation endeavors may have on democratic citizenship, and calls for further research on the broader implications of this work for promoting healthy democratic societies.
Deliberation In and Through Higher Education
Authors: Shaffer Timothy J.
Published: May 2020

This article explores how deliberative democracy has the ability to change how colleges and universities function. Deliberation offers a powerful way for students, faculty, staff, and community partners to learn and practice modes of reasoning and deciding together in a variety of settings such as classrooms, other campus settings, and in communities. The article includes scholarly resources as well as examples of deliberation in various contexts. The article suggests that deliberation can replace, or at least complement, many of the more familiar models pervasive in our institutions.
Mommy Groups as Sites for Deliberation in Everyday Speech
Authors: Lawrence Windy Yvonne , Bates Benjamin R.
Published: May 2020

This study advances our knowledge of the role of metaphor in deliberation in everyday speech (with an emphasis on the role of competition, cooperation, and connection metaphors), which up to now has not been studied as an important discursive strategy in deliberation. Furthermore, the study contributes to our understanding of the discursive practices that happen during deliberation, as opposed to measuring, for example, deliberation’s effects. After all, scholars, more and more, are writing about deliberative communication as a means to understand how communities can improve the quality of their communication and decision-making to work through problems. Language strategies, such as metaphor, help deliberators resolve what scholars have referred to as “wicked problems” or problems that are negotiated across time and are latent with competing values and social identities. One example of a citizen-led, localized context, where community members work to address a “wicked problem” is the Salem Kids Group. In this paper, we argue that in the Salem Kids Group’s online and face-to-face discussions, three dominant family metaphors, competition, cooperation, and connection, work to structure and define parameters for the group’s everyday talk and hold important implications for everyday speech in deliberation.
Boosting the Local Economy of Ashland Ohio
Authors: Fleming-Dufala Louise C. , Field-Springer Kimberly
Published: May 2020

This article summarizes an initiative to engage citizens in issues of building and supporting a local economy. It includes reasons for engaging the public; steps that were taken; and results of deliberative efforts.
Context and Medium Matter: Expressing Disagreements Online and Face-to-Face in Political Deliberations
Authors: Stromer-Galley Jennifer , Bryant Lauren , Bimber Bruce
Published: May 2020

Processes of disagreement are important to public deliberation, but research has not examined the dynamics of disagreement in deliberation of political topics with respect to effects of the channel of interaction. This study analyzes the discussions generated via an experiment in which discussants were randomly assigned either to deliberate online via synchronous chat or face-to-face. The study compares the initiation of disagreement, its qualities, and how long it is sustained in the two environments. Discourse analysis suggests that in the online environment initial expressions of disagreement were less frequent, less bold, and were not sustained as compared with the face-to-face discussions. Reasons include the lack of coherence in synchronous chat, which may challenge interlocutors and prevent them from pursuing a disagreement over multiple turns. Implications of these findings for scholars and practitioners are discussed.
Diverse Discourse: Analyzing the Potential of Public Affairs Magazine Online Forums to Reflect Qualities of the Public Sphere
Authors: Wolfgang David , Jenkins Joy
Published: May 2020

Public affairs magazines have expanded beyond their print editions to offer online editions with forums for readers to discuss important public issues. For magazines that cater to ideologically specific audiences, online forums could serve as forms of alternative publics for presenting diverse viewpoints and values. The conversations that emerge also hold potential for portraying characteristics of the public sphere. This study used textual analysis to examine online comments associated with 21 articles from six different U.S. public affairs magazines representing various positions on the ideological spectrum. Using Dahlberg’s (2001) six-part assessment of quality public discourse, the analysis showed that moderate magazines serving a broad readership induced a lower-quality discussion. In contrast, liberal and conservative publications, when encouraging diverse and ideologically heterogeneous perspectives, produced quality discourse. These forums showed higher levels of quality characteristics such as exchange and critique of normative positions, reflexivity, sincerity, and constructive dialogue.
Democratic Innovations in Deliberative Systems – The Case of the Estonian Citizens’ Assembly Process
Authors: Jonsson Magnus E.
Published: May 2020

With the proliferation and application of democratic innovations around the world, the empirical study of deliberative and participatory processes has shifted from small-scale environments and experiments to real-life political processes on a large scale. With this shift, there is also a need to explore new theoretical approaches in order to understand current developments. Instead of analyzing democratic innovations in isolation, the recent ‘systemic turn’ in the field encourages us to broaden our perspective and evaluate democratic innovations as complementary parts of a political system.This paper will draw upon a qualitative case study, based on interview and supported by survey data, of the ‘Estonian Citizens’ Assembly Process’ (ECA), in order to operationalize the systemic approach to deliberative democracy and illustrate how this can be applied to an analysis of democratic innovations.The ECA spanned more than a year (November 2012 to April 2014) and covered three political arenas: the public sphere, democratic innovations and representative institutions. The systemic analysis highlights the deliberative strengths and weaknesses of arenas and institutions, and illuminates how various arenas and democratic innovations did and did not complement one another in the creation of a deliberative process. The systemic analysis offers two possible interpretations of the ECA. The more affirmative interpretation is it constituted a deliberative system, as it did perform the three main functions fulfilled by different arenas and institutions. The more critical interpretation is that the ECA partly failed to be a deliberative system, due to social domination and decoupling of institutions.
Review of The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions by Christopher F. Karpowitz and Tali Mendelberg (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014)
Authors: Felts Nicholas A.
Published: May 2020

Review of The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions by Christopher F. Karpowitz and Tali Mendelberg (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
Symbolic-Cognitive Proceduralism: A Model of Deliberative Legitimacy
Authors: Richards Jr Robert C. , Gastil John
Published: May 2020

Burkhalter et al.’s (2002) self-reinforcing model of democratic deliberation is well established, but lacks an account of legitimacy, which is a key element of most democratic-deliberative theories. We extend Burkhalter et al.’s model by proposing a new model called “symbolic-cognitive proceduralism,” which explains how democratic-deliberative processes generate legitimacy, and how such legitimacy contributes to the social reproduction of deliberation. Our proposed model accounts for perceived and normative legitimacy, at interpersonal and macro-social levels of analysis, over short and long time-spans, and accords with substantial empirical evidence.
Communication and Citizenship: Reflections on Classroom Practice
Authors: Sheeler Kristina Horn , Weiss Anne , D’Souza Ryan Aaron
Published: May 2020

This essay reflects on a semester-length classroom activity designed to give students an opportunity to practice their citizenship skills. We approach the problem of lack of citizen participation as a communication challenge and present our adaptation of Deliberative Polling to provide students with opportunities to: 1) research alternatives on an issue related to citizenship, 2) hone their research and critical thinking skills, and 3) participate in communication on issues related to citizenship with focused reflection on the communication processes involved. Because the topic is citizenship, students discuss issues related to political participation (e.g. voting) and are asked to reflect on their own practice of citizenship throughout the process. The activity allowed students to experience an alternative to the “either/or debate” perception of politics and gave them tools to participate in politics differently, and in more satisfying ways.
The Magic Sauce: Practices of Facilitation in Online Policy Deliberation
Authors: Epstein Dmitry , Leshed Gilly
Published: May 2020

Online engagement in policy deliberation is one of the more complex aspects of open government. Previous research on human facilitation of policy deliberation has focused primarily on the citizens who need facilitation. In this paper we unpack the facilitation practices from the perspective of the moderator. We present an interview study of facilitators in RegulationRoom – an online policy deliberation platform. Our findings reveal that facilitators focus primarily on two broad activities: managing the stream of comments and interacting with comments and commenters – both aimed at obtaining high quality public input into the particular policymaking process. Managing the immediate goals of online policy deliberations, however, might overshadow long-term goals pf public deliberation, i.e. helping individuals develop participatory literacy beyond a single policy engagement. Our contribution is twofold: we unpack the practice of human facilitation in online policy deliberation, and suggest both design and process implications for sustainable growth of civic engagement environments beyond the individual case we analyze.
Assessing Deliberative Pedagogy: Using a Learning Outcomes Rubric to Assess Tradeoffs and Tensions
Authors: Drury Sara A. M. , Andre Derek , Goddard Seton , Wentzel Jeremy
Published: May 2020

Teaching deliberative decision-making is a method of encouraging students to think critically, engage public problems, and engage in both public speaking and public listening. College instructors have begun to use deliberation as a pedagogical tool, yet further research is needed to understand the learning outcomes of deliberative pedagogy. We argue that the deliberative principle of “understanding tradeoffs and tensions” is a key learning outcome of deliberative pedagogy, and demonstrate an avenue for evaluating it through a learning outcomes rubric, and through critical-interpretative methods of rhetorical criticism. In our analysis, we demonstrate that students with prior training in deliberation achieve higher levels of understanding tradeoffs and tensions through their rhetorical behaviors of embodying a deliberative perspective, expressing inclusivity, and working through public problems.
Framing the Public Discourse Across Time: National Issues Forums Guides on Immigration in the U.S. (1986-2013)
Authors: Smithberger Leanna K.
Published: May 2020

This paper analyzes the National Issues Forums issue guides on immigration in order to understand how the NIF frames the issue deliberatively. Ideograph analysis is used to identify key terms in the immigration issue guides from 1986, 1994, 2003, and 2013 in order to uncover the cultural worldview surrounding immigration. The two key contrasting terms identified are a “nation of immigrants” and “illegal immigrants,” and the strong contradiction between these terms is offered as an explanation for the instability surrounding immigration in the public discourse. Since the choice work conceptual frame utilizes multiple competing ideographs to discuss immigration, a productive tension is maintained, allowing for a nonpartisan deliberative framework that encourages public dialogue and limits polarization.
Disagreement and Consensus: The Need for Dynamic Updating in Public Deliberation
Authors: Karpowitz Christopher F. , Mansbridge Jane
Published: May 2020

This analysis compares a consensus-oriented procedure, Princeton Future, with a more adversarial procedure, the public meetings of the Princeton, N.J. borough council, organized as public hearings. It finds that the consensus-oriented procedure failed to pick up significant conflicting interests among the citizens and as a consequence failed to provide venues for discussing and possibly negotiating those interests. It advises that deliberative democratic procedures provide for dynamic updating on the underlying and changing interest structure before and during deliberation, with particular attention to the important lines of conflict. Thus facilitators should help participants in deliberation not only forge common interests but also clarify their conflicting interests.
Review of Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy by Tina Nabatchi and Matt Leighninger (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2015)
Authors: Peltz Elie
Published: May 2020

Review of Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy by Tina Nabatchi and Matt Leighninger (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2015)
Review of Scientists, Experts, and Civic Engagement: Walking a Fine Line edited by Amy E. Lesen (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015)
Authors: Williams Jennifer G.
Published: May 2020

Book Review: Scientists, Experts, and Civic Engagement: Walking a Fine Line edited by Amy E. Lesen (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015)
When is Deliberation Democratic?
Authors: Moscrop David RH , Warren Mark E.
Published: May 2020

“Deliberative democracy” is a compound term. In both theory and practice, it connects deliberative influence through reason giving, reciprocity, and publicity to a family of political systems that broadly enable popular control of the state and government through empowerments such as voting, petitioning, and contesting, as well as the electoral and judicial systems that enable them. These empowerments are democratic when they are distributed to, and usable by, those affected by collective decisions in ways that are both equal and equitable.While deliberative influence is best protected and incentivized by democratic political systems, not all deliberation is democratic, and not all approaches to democracy are deliberative. We should distinguish and relate these terms: we need to differentiate the practice of deliberation from the contexts of democratic enablements and empowerments in which it occurs. We can then focus on the pre-deliberative conditions that will enable or limit the extent to which deliberation is democratic. Two pre-deliberative democratic features stand out as particularly important in this context: popular participation—how individuals come to have standing and voice as participants, and agenda-setting—how concerns come to be defined as issues. We further argue that since deliberation typically occurs downstream from agenda-setting, and since popular participation both shapes and is shaped by this practice, theorists and practitioners of deliberative democracy should pay close attention to each well before deliberation begins.To make this case, we first theorize the democratic dimensions of deliberative democracy through the concepts of equity and equality. Second, we focus on agenda setting and popular participation as important, though not exclusive, pre-deliberative determinants of equality and equity during deliberation. Finally, we offer suggestions about how theorists and practitioners of deliberative democracy might think about responding to the challenges generated by the tension between equality and equity prior to democratic deliberation.
The Role of Experts across Two Different Arenas in a Deliberative System
Authors: Maia Rousiley C. M. , Laranjeira Marcela D. , Mundim Pedro S.
Published: May 2020

The notion of a “deliberative system” has become central to debates on deliberation. The plea to regard deliberative processes from a system-wide perspective is genuinely innovative and attractive, but little has been done to understand how deliberation in one arena or a separate institution relates to other arenas. This study investigates the role that experts play in public communication in two arenas that have distinct systemic functions. It compares how experts express and justify their opinions on a controversial public policy in legislative public hearings and when they are quoted in the news media. Our findings, based on an empirical case study, revealed that experts played a similar role in different contexts in micro- and macro arenas; and most debate participants appealed to technical knowledge to compel a particular decision. Our analysis concludes by reflecting upon the interconnectivities of the aforementioned arenas; and the systemic approach implications on empirical research.
Beyond Aggregation: “The Wisdom of Crowds” Meets Dialogue in the Case Study of Shaping America’s Youth
Authors: Heath Renee G. , Majors Elisa
Published: May 2020

The present interpretive case study examined how an interorganizational partnership facilitating five large-scale public dialogues on childhood obesity, held throughout the United States, carried out its commitment to engage nonexperts in solutions. Leaders of the Shaping America’s Youth collaboration, believed the wisdom of crowds is facilitated through discussion. Accordingly this study has implications for deliberative practice as it provides a heuristic for eliciting the voice of nonexperts. In particular we describe empirically grounded dialogic principles that underlay a successful participation process: voice, diversity, transparency, preparedness, and neutrality. Additionally, the study documents perceived outcomes linking dialogic process and product by identifying changes in the rules and resources available to the public in light of the problem, including local and state policy level changes, and strengthened relationships and credibility with the media and funders. Finally, the case challenges theoretical assumptions about the wisdom of crowds as simply an aggregate of individually held knowledge.
Mediation Styles and Participants’ Perception of Success in Consultative Councils: The case of Guadalajara, Mexico
Authors: López García David
Published: May 2020

This article entails a comparative study of municipal consultative councils in Guadalajara, Mexico, to explore the mediation styles employed by those in charge of conducting the councils’ deliberation, which I call Mediators of Deliberative Process (MDP). Through the construction of an indicator called Participants’ Perception of Success, the article evaluates the relationship between the mediators’ styles and the degree to which participants think that the consultative council (CC) has been successful in achieving its purported goals. The results suggest that 1) MDPs exert different levels of directiveness that change over the course of the mediation according to the type of decision-making under deliberation; 2) that participants have a higher perception of the CC’s success in the case where the MDP is an expert in the subject matter of the council, resorts to a more directive approach to mediation, and deliberation is more oriented towards the outcomes of the mediation; and 3) that participants perceive the CCs as successful spaces to communicate with public officials, but least successful in having an influence over public policies.
The Instrumental Value of Deliberative Democracy – Or, do we have Good Reasons to be Deliberative Democrats?
Authors: Kuyper Jonathan W.
Published: May 2020

Though commanding a prominent role in political theory, deliberative democracy has also become a mainstay of myriad other research traditions in recent years. This diffusion has been propelled along by the notion that deliberation, properly conceived and enacted, generates many beneficial outcomes. This article has three goals geared toward understanding whether these instrumental benefits provide us with good reasons – beyond intrinsic ones – to be deliberative democrats. First, the proclaimed instrumental benefits are systematized in terms of micro, meso, and macro outcomes. Second, relevant literatures are canvassed to critically assess what we know – and what we do not know – about deliberation’s effects. Finally, the instrumental benefits of deliberation are recast in light of the ongoing systemic turn in deliberative theory. This article adds to our theoretical understanding of deliberation’s promises and pitfalls, and helps practitioners identify gaps in our knowledge concerning how deliberation works and what its wider societal implications might be.
Citizen Panels and Opinion Polls: Convergence and Divergence in Policy Preferences
Authors: Boulianne Shelley , Loptson Kristjana , Kahane David
Published: May 2020

Citizen panels offer an alternative venue for gathering input into the policy-making process. These deliberative exercises are intended to produce more thoughtful and informed inputs into the policy-making process, compared to public opinion polls. This paper highlights a six day deliberative event about energy and climate issues, tracking opinion changes before and after the deliberation, as well as six months after the deliberation. In two of the five policy domains, opinions change as a result of the deliberation and these changes endure six months after the deliberation. The tracking of opinions across the three points in time reveals a pattern of convergence between panelists’ views and poll results for three of the five policy domains. Panelists were overly optimistic about many of the policy options prior to deliberation, but became more critical of these policies post-deliberation, moving their opinions closer to those of poll respondents.
e-Rulemaking: a New Avenue for Public Engagement
Authors: Carlitz Robert , Gunn Rosemary
Published: May 2020

A new online system is being created to support rulemaking, the process agencies use to implement federal legislation. The new system will allow members of the public to participate in rulemaking far more easily than ever before, realizing the potential of legislation that has been in place since 1946. Online rulemaking may lead to a process that is more inclusive in scope and more open to public discussion.
Authoritarianism and Deliberative Democracy: Responding to Our Current Political Times and Contexts
Authors: Shaffer Timothy J. , Black Laura W.
Published: May 2020

This article introduces the special issue on Deliberative Democracy in an Era of Authoritarianism. The essay highlights the relationship between authoritarianism and democracy, and discusses concerns about the current rise in authoritarianism in political systems. It poses questions about how deliberative scholars and practitioners should respond to authoritarian political contexts and how deliberation should relate to more activist forms of civic engagement. Finally, it previews the articles in the special issue and urges future work in the field to take up ideas, questions, and challenges posed by these essays.
Deliberative Mini-publics as a Partial Antidote to Authoritarian Information Strategies
Authors: Richards Jr. Robert C.
Published: May 2020

Authoritarian or illiberal regimes control a growing number of states throughout the world. Among the information strategies that these regimes use to gain and maintain support are the dissemination of false or misleading policy information and the use of manipulative policy frames. Deliberative mini-publics can partially counter those strategies by distributing accurate policy information and employing non-exploitative policy frames that affirm the dignity of members of the polity as free and equal citizens.
Deliberation for Development: Ghana’s First Deliberative Poll
Authors: Chirawurah Dennis , Fishkin James , Santuah Niagia , Siu Alice , Bawah Ayaga , Kranjac-Berisavljevic Gordana , Giles Kathleen
Published: May 2020

This article poses the problem of public consultation in developing countries and applies a solution in Ghana as a test case. It describes the theoretical rationale for deliberative consultation with random samples, describes specific criteria for success, and then assesses an application under the challenging conditions of a developing country. It builds on notions of “deliberative democracy,” and shows how they can be practically realized in an African context through “Deliberative Polling” (DP). The challenge is that the context is one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in Africa. Rather than consulting just stakeholders, or self-selected populations, or using conventional surveys, DP’s have the advantage of consulting random samples with deliberation in depth in confidential surveys so that the opinion changes can be evaluated at the individual level, free of social pressures for consensus. Is this practical in this context? A DP was conducted in Tamale, Ghana on issues of water, sanitation, hygiene and food security. Criteria for success for DPs that have been applied in highly developed countries are discussed and then applied in Ghana under challenging conditions.
Distributing Money to Commemoration: Collective Memories, Sense of Place, and Participatory Budgeting
Authors: Yeh Hsin-Yi , Lin Kuo-Ming
Published: May 2020

This article brings the aspect of collective memories (and thus identity) back “in” to facilitate our understanding of the intriguing relationship among memories, places, and deliberative projects. While we observe that the memories of a place assign meanings to it and thereby not only imbue a “sense of place” to local members but also influence the process of deliberation, we claim that the process of deliberation can serve as a place-(re)making opportunity in a bottom-up way. Taking an experimental participatory budgeting (PB) program in Taiwan as an example, we find that collective memories play a role to influence what projects are proposed, what projects win the voting, and how people react to winning projects. In the case of South-Peak, on one hand, the winning projects echo aspects of prevailing commemorative narratives; on the other, the voting results further confirm, connect, and align the local collective memories. That is, a self-reinforcing process occurs. Additionally, we discuss how prevailing memories may change due to significant events so the meanings assigned to a specific place may thus change accordingly. Nevertheless, this is not to say that PB can only be conducted in places of strong memories and thus where a sense of place exists; since the deliberation process itself acts as a place-(re)making chance, we can expect PB to encourage the emergence and/or refreshment of collectivity during its own process.
Democratic Self-Determination and the Intentional Building of Consensus
Authors: Ottonelli Valeria
Published: May 2020

This paper defends two fundamental but under-theorized insights coming from the theory of deliberative democracy. The first is that consensus is valuable as a precondition of democratic collective self-determination, since it ensures that democratic decisions display an adequate degree of integrity and consistency and therefore that the polity can act as a unified agent. The second is that consensus in this integrity-building role is essential if citizens need to act as decision-makers; it ensures that the decisions that issue from the exercise of their political rights are meaningful, and that they are so as the intended result of their joint agency.Aggregative approaches, which do not acknowledge this role of consensus, offer an atomistic account of voting and other political rights, and model the outcomes of democratic decision-making as unintended aggregative consequences of individual votes. In these models, democratic political agency and the decision-making power of citizens are curtailed, because citizens do not exert any intentional control on the final outcome of the decision-making process in which they participate.Although the insight on these shortcomings comes from the deliberative camp, I show that the most prominent accounts of how deliberation is supposed to further consensus in its integrity-building role can be subject to the same criticisms. In fact, in these models consensus is achieved as a by-product of people's engaging in deliberation. Although interactive, these approaches are still atomistic and unintentional. As an alternative, I propose a model of democratic decision-making that acknowledges the role played by the citizens' intentional consensus-building through the strategic use of their political rights.
21st Century Town Hall Meetings in the 1990s and 2000s: Deliberative Demonstrations and the Commodification of Political Authenticity in an Era of Austerity
Authors: Lee Caroline W.
Published: May 2020

The public participation field grew dramatically in the United States during the 1990s and 2000s, in part due to the flagship dialogue and deliberation organization AmericaSpeaks and its trademarked 21st Century Town Hall Meeting method for large group decision-making. Drawing on participant observation of three such meetings and a multi-method ethnography of the larger field, I place these meetings in context as experimental deliberative demonstrations during a time of ferment regarding declining citizen capacity in the United States. AmericaSpeaks’ town meetings were branded as politically authentic alternatives to ordinary politics, but as participatory methods and empowerment discourses became popular with a wide variety of public and private actors, the organization failed to find a sustainable business model. I conclude by discussing the challenges for contemporary town hall meetings in an era when political authenticity is a valuable commodity.
Deliberative America
Authors: Shane Peter M.
Published: May 2020

New books by Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin and by Ethan J. Leib conclusively demonstrate that ambitious versions of deliberative democracy are susceptible to practical implementation in the United States. This review argues that the suggested reforms would be most potent if deployed as a simultaneous project of revitalizing both the electoral and deliberative aspects of American democratic legitimacy, and that campaigns to do so on a local level are more likely both to attract political support and achieve effectiveness than a campaign aimed at the national government.
Embedded Public Reasoning: A Response to Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind
Authors: DeMoor Michael J.
Published: May 2020

Jonathan Haidt is a moral psychologist whose influential book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, explains the origins of our political disagreements. The aim of the book is to encourage understanding and civility in our public life. Deliberative democrats also have a significant stake in understanding the sources of our disagreements and see rational deliberation as the key to civility and democratic legitimacy. However, Haidt’s empirical studies give reasons to suggest that the “faith” of deliberative democrats in reasoning may be misplaced, particularly as that faith tends be inflected in terms of a “Kantian” moral psychology.This article analyzes four different explanatory “stories” that Haidt weaves together: (1) a “causal” evolutionary account of the development of morality; (2) a “causal” story about the psychological mechanisms explaining human action; (3) a “causal” story about the historical and cultural determinants of our political attitudes; and (4) a “normative” story about the grounds and justification of human action. The article then examines these stories to discern how deliberative democrats might rearticulate their conception of public reasoning, and their normative hopes for it, in light of Haidt’s findings by introducing the “embedded” conception of public reasoning.
Participatory Deliberative Democracy for Peace in El Salvador
Authors: Mundt Marcia D.
Published: May 2020

Postconflict societies such as El Salvador, surpassing 25 years of relative peace since signing the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords, have employed many mechanisms to rebuild and establish lasting peace. This study explores the impacts of four types of deliberative democracy mechanisms employed in this postconflict context to build grassroots participation in public policy-making: cabildos abiertos (open town hall meetings), asociaciones de desarrollo comunitario (community development associations), presupuestos participativos (participatory budgeting), and planes estratégicos participativos (participatory strategic plans). Findings suggest that individual participation in these forms of deliberative democracy implemented in postconflict El Salvador is associated with increased trust in local government. However, participation is also associated with higher levels of direct experience with personal violence and decreased satisfaction with one’s community. Findings suggest that implementing participatory deliberative democracy mechanisms in postconflict contexts is not alone enough to address the critiques of top-down liberal peacebuilding. Participatory forums for policy-making in postwar contexts should be designed and employed with conflict dynamics in mind to foster possible positive effects of deliberative democracy while mitigating potential negative effects on peacebuilding.
It’s a Long Way from Helsingborg to Porto Alegre: A Case Study in Deliberative Democracy in Late Modernity
Authors: Svensson Jakob
Published: May 2020

Since the 1990’s representative democracy has been challenged by a deliberative turn in political philosophy, reaching even into the practices of established political institutions. In Sweden, the Municipality of Helsingborg, inspired by deliberative ideals, established civic committees as a way to deal with changing patterns of civic political behavior in late modernity. One reason for this is that deliberation is assumed to revitalize representative democracy by avoiding the instrumental rational focus on self-interest. However, there are some difficulties in implementing deliberative democracy within this municipal representative democratic setting. This article will point to some problems in the Helsingborg experiment.