Scholars have described an explosion of consultation in the last decades of the twentieth century, characterized by the proliferation of new deliberative assemblies. I propose a fiscal theory of consultation to explain this phenomenon. Democratic states are likely to grant citizens rights of binding consultation at times of fiscal stress, when intensive state extraction of resources provokes citizen resistance that results in procedural concessions. Three mechanisms--escalation by citizens, anticipatory consultation by state officials, and information arbitrage by nongovernmental intermediaries--promote continued innovation in the modes of such consultation. Historical and quantitative evidence concerning the evolution of public consultation in California and New York supports the application of this theory to the late-twentieth-century consultation explosion.
THE GREAT CONSULTATIONOn Weds., Feb 18, 2009, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and a not-for-profit organization called California Forward jointly convened a meeting of about 40 local businesspeople to discuss possible reforms to the state's tax structure. Through "small group dialogue, electronic keypad voting and written comments," the participants weighed in on policy options that included new sales taxes, changes to property tax rules, and simplification of the income tax code (California Forward 2009: 3). The meeting was only one of dozens of hearings, stakeholder convenings, public workshops, focus groups, ChoiceDialogues TM , visioning sessions, "community conversations" and town hall forums convened in 2008 and 2009 to discuss options for fundamental reform of the state's governance structure (see e.g. Rosell, Furth and Gantwerk 2008; Small and Neyestani 2008;Agee et al. 2009;California Forward 2009). 1 The interest groups convening these meetings took names, such as California Forward, Repair California, Common Sense California, and Saving California Communities, that evoked progress, civic healing, and even salvation. It was as if the state of California was convulsed by a civic revival: call it the Great Consultation. The immediate purpose of this revival, however, was not spiritual, but mundane. Conveners sought to elicit public participation in setting a policy agenda."Certainly this forum is about informing people," said the organizer of one such town hall meeting in suburban Thousand Oaks, "but more importantly it's about collecting feedback from the public" (Herdt 2009).The Great Consultation exemplifies a recent transformation in governance described by 1ChoiceDialogue TM is a trademark of Viewpoint Learning, Inc. The genus that I am calling "deliberative assemblies" would also include several other species, including charrettes and Deliberative Polls ® ; the latter is a registered trademark of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University.