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3.2 What are the common underlying design
61 should be given “an equal chance to be included” in the mini-public and to influence both the process and its outcomes (Caluwaerts &
Reuchamps, 2015; O’Flynn & Sood, 2014, p. 43). According to Caluwaerts and Reuchamps (2015), the use of random sampling strategies would therefore be of great importance to warrant the inclusiveness of a mini-public.
From deliberative theory, we can derive three arguments explaining why random sampling would be the “most appropriate method” (Fishkin, et al., 2000) to select and recruit participants for a mini-public. First, deliberative democrats prefer random sampling to self-selection methods1 because they are intended to increase cognitive diversity among participants and thus the input legitimacy of the deliberative participation process (Bohman, 2007; Caluwaerts & Ugarriza, 2012;
Fishkin, 2011). Secondly, deliberative democrats argue that random sampling methods would increase the descriptive representativeness, which means that the socio-demographic features presented in the affected population are also reflected in the selected group (Boogaard et al., 2016; Fishkin, 2011; Fournier, et al., 2011). Random sampling can therefore create inclusive equality between representatives (mini-public participants) and represented (fellow citizens in the overall population).
Finally, deliberative democrats argue that random sampling would ensure impartiality by preventing corruption and domination (e.g., manipulation and backdoor negotiations between small powerful groups) during the selection process (Smith, 2009; Fishkin, 2011;
Courant, 2019).
1 According to deliberative democrats, random sampling would help to avoid the problem of
“informational inbreeding among likeminded citizens” (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2015;
Huckfeldt, 2001, p. 426; see also Ryfe, 2005).
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3.2.2 Deliberation and decision-making in mini-publics
All mini-publics strive for a high quality of face-to-face deliberation. In deliberative theory, deliberation among a diverse set of actors is expected to lead to a variety of positive democratic outcomes (cf.
Barber, 1984; Chambers, 2003; Fishkin, 2011; Gutmann & Thompson, 1998). First of all, participants are expected to be able to improve their understanding of the issue at hand through deliberation (Chambers, 2003; Gutmann & Thompson, 1998). They are also expected to become more tolerant of opposing points of view (Gutmann & Thompson, 1998), to develop more considered and informed judgements, and better political outcomes (“rationally motivated consensus”) (Chambers, 2003; Cohen, 1989, p. 33). To realize these democratic ideals, the participants in mini-publics are usually involved in facilitated deliberations (Ryan & Smith, 2014). To enable an equal discourse among the participants,
“deliberation in mini-publics is always organized and structured by rules”, set by an independent organizer (the “rule-setter”) (Landwehr, 2014, p. 78). To ensure that dialogue rules are kept, deliberation in mini-publics is usually facilitated by independent intermediaries (“rule-keepers”), such as moderators, mediators, and facilitators (e.g., chairpersons) (Landwehr, 2014). According to Landwehr (2014), during deliberation, it is the task of these intermediaries to “rationalise communication” and to keep “emotions at bay” through interventions (e.g., rejection of non-argumentative contributions or reformulation of personal stories into generalizable arguments). Moreover, intermediates also have the task of ensuring “internal inclusion” (Young, 2002) or
“discursive representation” (Dryzek & Niemeyer, 2008) in a mini-public by giving all participants an equal opportunity to present their arguments and counter-arguments during deliberations. To warrant equality among speakers, intermediates also have the task of undermining undesirable power asymmetries (e.g., dominate speakers) through interventions (e.g., encouraging shy participants to speak up)
63 (Landwehr, 2014). The principle of political equality thus not only applies to the participant selection mode but also the core of deliberation. All those affected by a collective decision should have an equal opportunity to participate in the deliberation on the content of that decision (Dryzek, 2009). The source of legitimate political outcomes, therefore, depends on the quality of deliberation (Gutman &
Thompson, 2004; Escobar, 2017). Yet, as participants might not have the same (prior) knowledge about the issue at hand, mini-publics also usually include a learning element (e.g., briefing materials, question-and-answer sessions with policymakers and experts, cross-examination of witnesses). The purpose of this learning element is to equally exposed participants to a wide range of information (Edwards, 2007). Moreover, to help participants to learn and reflect on a particular issue from a different perspective and to arrive at a more considered and informed judgement, mini-publics involve learning and deliberation activities (e.g., questioning witnesses, policymakers and/or experts) (Escobar-Rodríguez & Elstub, 2017). According to Warren (2009), these learning and deliberation activities would aim to capture “the innovative and progressive capacity of deliberation” (p. 10).
As regards the decision-making process, in some mini-public designs, especially those where deliberations are more result-oriented (e.g., to produce a collective report or policy recommendations1), aggregative voting procedures are also used to arrive at a final decision or to accept a number of proposals. In mini-publics that are more communication-driven (e.g., Deliberative Polls), it is also up to the intermediaries to structure the discourse by, for example, summarising participants’
results or opening and closing new and old topics (Landwehr, 2014).
Moreover, while in some mini-public designs (e.g., Citizens’ Assemblies
1 This is not the case with all mini-public designs. As we will show in the next section, some mini-publics are not designed to reach a mutual agreement on a particular topic/issue in question. For example, in Deliberative Polls, the goal of the organizers is to show that participants have changed their opinion after deliberation, rather than asking them to make a decision or recommendations.
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and the G1000 initiatives) decision-making is left to the participants (e.g., participants have to write recommendations), in other cases this task is largely left to the organisers or intermediaries (e.g., in Planning Cells, moderators prepare the final report) (Landwehr, 2014). Despite the differences in mini-public designs in terms of the nature of the final outcomes and the way, decisions are made, all mini-public designs have in common that they aim to warrant the transparency of proceedings and decision-making procedures and processes. To produce fair outcomes, all participants need to have a clear understanding of the conditions under which they are participating (Smith, 2009).
3.2.3 Impact of mini-publics on decision-making
As for the final characteristic of mini-publics, their impact, mini-public designs have been specifically designed to improve the quality of political decision-making by providing citizens with a more or less formal role in the political decision-making process (Ryan & Smith, 2014). In the previous section, we have indicated that this ‘role’ contains involving citizens in deliberation about issues that affect them to reach a more considered and informed consensual outcome. Consequently, to exert some influence on decision-making, mini-publics strive for alignment of the considered views and decisions of citizens with political decision-making (Ryan & Smith, 2014). For this purpose, the outcomes of mini-publics should be at least consequential and should be linked in one way or another to formal political decision-making (Dryzek, 2009).
Dryzek (2009) explains the idea of consequentiality as follows (p. 1382):
Consequential means that deliberative processes must have an impact on collective decisions or social outcomes. This impact need not be direct – that is, deliberation need not involve the actual making of policy decisions. For example, public deliberation might have an influence on decision makers who are not participants in deliberation. This might
65 occur when an informal deliberative forum makes recommendations that are subsequently considered by policy makers. Nor need the outcomes in questions be explicit policy decisions; they might, for example, be informal products of a network, thus entailing governance without government.
As Dryzek (2009) explains, a mini-public does not necessarily have to exercise direct control (popular control) on decision-making to produce consequential outcomes. In fact, there are very few cases (e.g., Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform in British Columbia) where mini-publics are integrated into decision-making processes and consequently formally empowered to directly influence policy decisions (Goodin and Dryzek, 2006). In most mini-public designs, there is an attempt to exert some consequential influence on decision-making by delivering a specific outcome (e.g., a collective decision, a detailed policy recommendation, an opinion poll) at the final stage of the participation event/process, which is then presented to the wider public (via the media) or to the government/parliament.
3.2.4 Summary
In sum, despite their design differences, we can derive from the previous section that all mini-publics have in common that they aim:
• to ensure inclusiveness by engaging a broadly diverse and representative sub-group of the affected population in a deliberation process;
• to ensure a high quality of deliberation and decision-making by providing all participants with an equal opportunity to contribute to the deliberation and decision-making;
• and to ensure at least consequentiality of the outcomes by providing participants with a greater say (influence) in political decision-making.
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As summarised in Table 3, mini-publics use random sampling to ensure inclusiveness, not only to ensure that the mini-public population is a cognitively diverse and descriptive representation of the wider public but also to ensure the impartiality of the process. High-quality deliberation (internal inclusiveness) and more considered, tolerant, and informed consensual outcomes are sought through the use of structured deliberation, learning opportunities, transparent proceedings and decision-making procedures, and popular control. Finally, to better align participants’ considered views and policy-making, mini-publics aim to create final outcomes to exert some consequential influence on decision-making.
Table 3. Common underlying design ideals of deliberative mini-publics.
Common desired ideal
Purposes Common design feature
Inclusiveness cognitive diversity
descriptive representativeness
impartiality
use of (quasi or simple) random sampling
High quality of
deliberation and decision-making
considered and informed judgement
internal inclusiveness
consensual outcomes
learning opportunities
structured deliberation
transparent proceedings and decision-making procedures
popular control
Influence alignment between
considered views and political decisions
consequential influence of citizens on collective decisions or social outcomes
creation of an outcome
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Chapter 4
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4 W HAT DO WE
KNOW ABOUT THE
FUNCTIONING OF MINI
-PUBLICS ?
In recent years, mini-publics have been used as experiments to test the normative claims of deliberative democrats and deliberative theory (Setälä & Herne, 2014). As we explained in chapter 2, the underlying aim of mini-publics is to improve the quality of political decision-making by giving a small, but representative and diverse group of citizens affected by a collective decision equal opportunities (right, ability and opportunity) to participate in the deliberations on the content of that decision and thus influence it (Dryzek, 2009). From this we have derived, in chapter 3, that there are three common design ideals that all mini-publics are striving for: [1] inclusiveness; [2] a high quality of deliberation and decision-making; and [3] influence or impact – the results of a mini-public must at least be consequential, which means that the decision-makers either agree to follow the recommendations or at least indicate publicly why they have or have not done so (see also Carson &
Hartz-Karp, 2005).
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In this chapter, we focus on the extent to which mini-publics have met these three underlying design ideas in the past. For this purpose, we will present empirical evidence of the strengths and weaknesses of mini-publics concerning these three ideals. Moreover, we will focus on what we do not yet know about deliberative mini-publics and how empirical evidence of social and political science theories created new implications for assessing the external and internal functioning of mini-publics.