Rethinking Representation and Diversity in Deliberative Minipublics

Abstract

Deliberative minipublics often seek to recruit participants who are representative and diverse. This raises theoretical and practical challenges, because representativeness and diversity can be interpreted in multiple ways and can conflict with one another. We address this issue by proposing a purposive design approach, according to which the appropriate conceptualisations of representativeness and diversity, and thereby recruitment strategies, depend on the deliberative mini-public's aims. We argue that deliberative minipublics frequently have mixed aims, which can justify hybrid recruitment strategies that reflect distinct senses of representativeness or diversity.

Let the people speak : deliberative mini-publics

“…Although the inclusiveness of mini-publics can be negatively affected by the problem of a biased sampling frame, the main reason for a lack of inclusiveness of mini-publics seems to be related to the problem of self-selection. Even though organisers do their best to randomly invite people from the affected population, research shows that those who accept the invitation often do not form a representative group of the local population (formerly called 'the usual suspects') (Steel, et al, 2020). As participation in a mini-public is not mandatory, selected participants can decide that they do not want to participate in a mini-public (the socalled 'non-participation').…”

“…One reason for this may be the fact that random sampling does not correct for social inequalities that occur in populations and thus can lead to biased sampling frames (see section 4.1.1. ;Steel, et al, 2020). Another reason is that participation in mini-publics is always affected by "the mechanism of voluntary self-selection", as individuals can decide voluntarily whether they want to participate in the mini-public or not (Fung, 2003).…”

“…Another reason is that participation in mini-publics is always affected by "the mechanism of voluntary self-selection", as individuals can decide voluntarily whether they want to participate in the mini-public or not (Fung, 2003). So, although participants are selected and recruited at random, those who accept the invitation are not random (see also Steel, et al, 2020).…”

“…In response to the empirical evidence presented, voices have been raised to reconsider the external inclusiveness of deliberative mini-publics (see e.g., Brown, 2006;Bächtiger, et al, 2014;Steel, Fazelpour, Gillette, Crewe & Burgess, 2018;Steel, et al, 2020). For example, Steel, et al (2020) argued that "random sampling […] should not be treated as a definitional criterion (pace Smith, 2009) nor as an indicator of quality (pace Fishkin, 2018) of deliberative mini-publics" (p. 47). In line with this, some scholars argued that in some cases a more inclusive participant sample in a mini-public might be achieved by oversampling minority groups (c.f.…”

“…James, 2008;Derenne, 2012) or by using nonrandom or hybrid recruitment strategies (c.f. Brown, 2006;Steel, et al, 2020). Jacobs and Kaufmann (2021) argue that it would be worthwhile to consider and test hybrid forms of participation mechanisms (or new mini-public designs) that contain elements of both random selection and self-selection because of their potential co-production value (leaning on the co-production literature; see e.g., Pestoff, 2006;Osborne, Radnor, and Strokosch, 2016).…”