Advisory, Collaborative and Scrutinizing Roles of Deliberative Mini-Publics

Setälä, Maija

doi:10.3389/fpos.2020.591844

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…DMPs have covered a wide range of topics including bioethics, resource scarcities, biodiversity loss and climate change [43]. Notable examples are the many citizens' assemblies on climate change held in France (2019-2020), Germany (2015), the UK (2020), Belgium (2020) and Hungary (2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Rojon

Pilet

2021

Sustainability

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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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Rojon

Pilet

2021

Sustainability

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“…Refs. [27][28][29] acknowledge that mini-publics are frequently too "tightly coupled" with governmental bodies; and that their "scrutinizing role" is limited. Critics also point to the example of how the steering body of the French Climate Assembly converted into a "politicized" forum and was likely to be associated with the ideals of those who initiated them [28,30].…”

Section: Ideal 1: Politically Independent Practice 1: Organizational ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In some cases, it dampens their factual knowledge, but it has also been shown to positively increase people's empathy towards the other side [40]. Moreover, using climate assemblies instrumentally to garner support may lead to cherry-picking of results [29].…”

Section: Ideal 3: Deliberative Quality Practice 3: One-sided Problem ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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When Digital Mass Participation Meets Citizen Deliberation: Combining Mini- and Maxi-Publics in Climate Policy-Making

Itten

Mouter

2022

Sustainability

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The upcoming vogue of climate assemblies and other forms of mini-publics are to give citizens a central role in climate policy-making and to break the political impasse. Yet climate mini-publics face challenges in political environments too, such as co-option, favoring expert opinions, and losing touch with the broader public. To remedy such pitfalls, recent papers have argued to combine synchronous deliberations of small groups of citizens with online participation procedures for the larger public. In this article, we report the results of a three-step combination model, where first a mini-public in the region of Súdwest-Fryslân (NL) was given a “carte blanche” to draft the content and the parameters of several related policy alternatives. Second, their proposals were fed into a digital participation tool to consult the wider public. Third, a citizens forum translated the outcomes of the maxi-public into policy recommendations, which were unanimously approved by the municipal council. In this paper, we report our findings of combining mini- and maxi-publics and how the actors involved evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the combination of these two participatory approaches.

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“…Ideal 5: Political uptake of the mini-publics recommendations According to Jäske (2019), governments that engage their citizens through deliberative processes seem Practice 5: No or low uptake of the minipublics recommendations Setälä (2021) and Niessen (2019) provide evidence about the inherent lack of incentives for elected to be widely supported by their residents. Moreover, many citizens engage in deliberation exactly because they are for those frustrated with status quo politics (Neblo et al 2010).…”

Section: Practice 4: Lack Of Connection To the Rest Of The Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital participation in climate assemblies: Lessons learned from the Netherlands

Itten¹,

Mouter²

2022

Preprint

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Notwithstanding the rationale and the demand for public participation in climate policies, aggregated perspectives of maxi-publics are often belittled as uninformed, self-interested and short-term focused. The upcoming vogue of climate assemblies, citizen parliaments and other forms of mini-publics is to give citizens a central role in climate policy-making and in some cases to break political impasse. Yet climate mini-publics face challenges in political environments too, such as co-option, favoring expert-opinions and losing touch with the broader public. To remedy such pitfalls, recent papers have argued to combine synchronous deliberations of small groups of citizens with online participation procedures for the larger public. In this article, we report the results of a three-step combination model, where first a mini-public in the region of Súdwest-Fryslân (NL) were given a ‘carte blanche’ to draft the content and the parameters of several related policy alternatives. Second, their proposals where fed into a digital participation tool, the Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) to consult the wider public. A total of 1,376 (approx. 2% of the inhabitants) expressed their preferences and explained why they favour a dominant role for the municipality and the residents but are reticent about giving the market too big a role. Third, a citizen forum translated the outcomes of the maxi-public into policy recommendations, which were unanimously approved by the municipal council. In this paper, we report our findings of combining mini-and maxi-publics and how actors involved evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the combination of these two participatory approaches.

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Advisory, Collaborative and Scrutinizing Roles of Deliberative Mini-Publics

Cited by 16 publications

References 52 publications

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

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

When Digital Mass Participation Meets Citizen Deliberation: Combining Mini- and Maxi-Publics in Climate Policy-Making

Digital participation in climate assemblies: Lessons learned from the Netherlands

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