Mini-Publics and the Wider Public: The Perceived Legitimacy of Randomly Selecting Citizen Representatives

Pow, James

doi:10.1080/00344893.2021.1880470

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Nevertheless, we can unfortunately not report how nonparticipants of both procedures assessed the combination approach. Empirical evidence of another study suggests that different selection methods of citizens assembly members have no main effect on the perceived legitimacy in the broader public [64].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Other studies might seek to weave deliberative functions into online participation or to use crowdsourced ideas or validation during climate deliberations. Such advanced combination models, e.g., [64], might help to resolve the dilemma of a random person having to trust the recommendations of the mini-public without knowing whether she would have come to a similar conclusion, had she been also part of that mini-public [52]. According to [9] other avenues of research could investigate how the integration of mini-and maxi-publics could foster social engagement of the disengaged, social cohesion within polarized or fragmented, as well as compassion with communities that are severely affected by climate change.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

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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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Itten

Mouter

2022

Sustainability

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show abstract

“…Nevertheless, we can unfortunately not report how non-participants of both procedures assessed the combination approach. Empirical evidence of another study suggests that different selection methods of citizen assembly members have no main effect on the perceived legitimacy in the broader public (Pow, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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.

show abstract

“…For example, regarding group composition, when participants confront their out-group (i.e., with people who hold an opposite view in a particular issue), they are more likely to hold more positive out-group attitudes after the experiment, regardless of the quality of the deliberation [ 83 ]. There is also an effect of public perceptions of legitimacy due to the selection mechanism (sortition compared to election) and participants’ profile (lay citizens versus professional politicians) [ 84 ]. However, neither legitimacy nor representativeness can assure a good quality deliberation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile

et al. 2022

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In the past few decades, constitution-making processes have shifted from being undertakings performed by elites and closed off from the public to ones incorporating democratic mechanisms. Little is known, however, about the determinants of voluntary public participation and how they affect the outcomes of the deliberative process in terms of content and quality. Here, we study the process of constituent involvement in the rewriting of Chile’s constitution in 2016. A total of 106, 412 citizens in 8, 113 different local encounters voluntarily congregated in groups of ten or more to collectively determine what social rights should be considered for inclusion in the new constitution, deliberating and then articulating in the written word why should be included. We brought our data to statistical regression models at the municipality level, the results show that the main determinants associated with increasing citizen participation are educational level, engagement in politics, support for the government, and Internet access. In contrast, population density and the share of Evangelical Christians in the general population decrease citizen participation. Then, we further analyze the written arguments for each collectively-selected constitutional rights. The findings suggest that groups from socioeconomically developed municipalities (with higher educational levels and where the main economic activities are more distant from natural resources), on average, deliberate consistently more about themes, concepts, and ideas compared to groups from less developed municipalities. These results provide an empirical ground on the driver factors of voluntary citizen participation and on the benefits and disadvantages of deliberative democracy. Hence, results can inform the organization of new deliberative processes.

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Mini-Publics and the Wider Public: The Perceived Legitimacy of Randomly Selecting Citizen Representatives

Cited by 22 publications

References 34 publications

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

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

Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile

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