Risks and lessons from the deliberative wave

In this two-part series, the Deliberative Democracy Digest is publishing short reflections from the event’s discussants. The first part of the series focuses on the importance of foregrounding the politics, failures and people’s participation in institutionalising and evaluating deliberative processes.

For politicians, running deliberative minipublics is a risky business

Matt Ryan

In 1894, South Australia became the first place in the world where women could stand for parliament, and the second place in the world where all women could vote. Since its founding by democratic idealists in 1836, democratic innovation has been woven into the state’s DNA.

A recent expression of that was the state’s experimentation with deliberative democracy. From 2013 to 2016, the South Australian government convened citizens’ juries on issues such as alcohol-fuelled violence, cycling safety, dog and cat management, water management and nuclear waste storage.

These citizens’ juries sat within a wider citizen engagement agenda that also included large-scale participatory budgeting, prize-backed challenges, digital engagement, as well as what describe as ‘deliberative rhetoric,’ a way of conducting public debate that recognised competing points of view and sought compromises. It was all part of Premier Jay Weatherill’s ‘debate-and-decide’ approach to governing.

There are two tales to tell about South Australia’s experience in running citizens’ juries that raise questions for how we institutionalise and evaluate deliberative processes.

Citizens’ juries generally had positive citizen feedback gathered through independent evaluations. They became less trusting of dramatised mass media coverage and more trusting of government. Some citizens’ juries recommendations were legislated. Adopting a ‘debate-and-decide’ approach was also observed to help Weatherill politically. Using it as a platform, he secured leadership of the governing Labor Party in 2011 and won an unlikely election in 2014.

How might we institutionalise deliberative processes to reduce the risks for politicians who want to adopt these processes?

However, there are challenges with using citizens’ juries. For example, the participant recruitment for the second citizens’ jury on nuclear waste storage was seen to be infiltrated by members of interest groups and was not genuinely deliberative. Unable to remedy the problem for fear of creating impressions of ‘jury tampering,’ the government was essentially forced to accept a recommendation not to proceed with a nuclear waste facility despite the process being perceived as biased. No citizens’ jury has been convened in South Australia since.

For politicians, running deliberative processes is a risky business and gives us cause to consider the following: How might we institutionalise deliberative processes to reduce the risks for politicians who want to adopt these processes? Should we focus only on commissioning through parliaments where risks and rewards are distributed across political parties? Should we be evaluating for political neutrality or should we be leveraging politics to incentivise the use of deliberative methods and evaluating the political benefits that result from it?

The OECD is right to argue that sustainable political commitment and evaluating for the wider and longer-term effects of deliberative processes is vital when thinking about commissioning them. If and how they should be integrated with competitive politics and policymaking should be part of that thinking.

Matt Ryan is a Senior Fellow of The GovLab, New York University and is based in South Australia. He is also a PhD candidate at the University of South Australia and a former deputy chief of staff to a South Australian premier. He tweets @mattryanaust.

Cite as: Ryan, M. (2022) ‘For politicians, running deliberative minipublics is a risky business,’ in Risks and lessons from the deliberative wave. Edited by N. Curato. Deliberative Democracy Digest. 2nd, May. Available at: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/welcome-to-the-deliberative-democracy-digest/

The importance of foregrounding failures

Lucy J. Parry

The OECD Guidelines (the Guidelines) offer a comprehensive approach for evaluating deliberative processes. They also offer food for thought on the relationship between evaluation and integrity. My current research investigates deliberative integrity by asking: What does it mean to run an ethical deliberative minipublic? Discussions around evaluation and institutionalisation overlap significantly with those on integrity, and the launch of the Guidelines provides a space for these conversations to come together.

The Guidelines recognise that different actors involved in a deliberative process can contribute towards evaluation: organisers, participants, stakeholders and nonparticipants all have insights into different aspects of the process that together can build a holistic evaluation. In particular, the Guidelines suggest that independent evaluations are a gold standard, especially for high stakes processes, and also put forward academic institutions as well-suited to this purpose.

We must be alive to not only positive impacts, but also negative ones.

An emerging theme from our own research is that academics may encounter a tension when they are both advocates and researchers of deliberative processes. This becomes particularly evident when it comes to publicly criticising deliberative processes, and is reflected in publication bias towards ‘success’ cases. This is not to say that academics cannot conduct high quality independent evaluations, of which we have seen plenty, but simply to highlight this awkwardness and discuss it openly.

The Guidelines also introduce a welcome conversation on longer-term and wider impacts of deliberative processes. These impacts, such as increased public trust and increased democratic capacities, can be diffusive and elusive to study. However, we must be alive to not only positive impacts, but also negative ones. Poorly organised processes, or those whose integrity is compromised, can result in decreased public trust and cynicism about the value of deliberative processes—the opposite of the impacts described in the Guidelines.

Learning from failures and retaining a critical and inquiring lens into deliberative processes can inform our thinking and learning about their purpose, role and implementation in broader political systems.

Lucy J. Parry is a research associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra, and democratic practice expert at the Democratic Society. She tweets @lucyjparry.

Cite as: Parry, L. J. (2022) ‘The importance of foregrounding failures,’ in Risks and lessons from the deliberative wave. Edited by N. Curato. Deliberative Democracy Digest. 2nd, May. Available at: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/welcome-to-the-deliberative-democracy-digest/

To institutionalize representative deliberative processes, we need to re-imagine democratic systems

Antonin Lacelle-Webster

The two reports put forward by the OECD come at an important moment. The OECD and others such as Participedia, the LATINNO and KNOCA have documented the rise of representative deliberative processes in the last decade or so. Although they remain somewhat marginal, this development is exciting as it reflects an effort to re-imagine democratic politics and recover forms of collective political agency. Yet, it calls for caution and critical analysis as these processes do not constitute a solution to every problem in democratic political systems.

How should we think about their strengths and weaknesses in relation to existing sites of politics?

In Eight ways to Institutionalise Deliberative Democracy, the OECD put forward useful examples that help us expand our democratic imagination. While they are nearly all linked to a legislative body, the report also discusses potential linkages with other components of a governance system, such as the judiciary, standing advisory bodies, or existing public participation processes. This development opens the door to further questions about the type of work these processes can do in democratic systems. For instance, are the incentives and risks related to their integration the same across the democratic system? What could be the potential relationship between institutionalized deliberative processes?

There is often a discrepancy between the policy and the democratic influence of representative deliberative processes.

While an important dimension of the assessment process focuses on the internal characteristics of such processes, the third chapter of the Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes discusses their wider impacts. Since these processes – institutionalized or not – are situated within an already existing and evolving ecosystem of political institutions and practices, the language of “pathways to impact” used in the Guidelines captures their complexity and contingency. What does it mean for these processes to be impactful (or not)? There is often a discrepancy between the policy and the democratic influence of representative deliberative processes. For instance, a process can foster political agency and contribute to a broader public debate while, at the same time, seeing its recommendations have a limited influence on public policy as policymakers can cherry-pick the elements they like or even ignore them. If multiple processes are implemented but generate little changes, does that undermine their democratic contribution? How should we approach this discrepancy to avoid undermining the legitimacy of representative deliberative processes and, in turn, the legitimacy of democratic systems? How can we measure their impact across multiple sites?

In conclusion, the work done by the OECD, and the broader discussion and questions it has generated, are important and productive contributions to the ongoing effort of re-thinking our democratic systems at a moment in which more democratic imagination is needed.

Antonin is a Ph.D. candidate in political theory in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia and a research assistant with Participedia. His work is at the intersection between democratic theory, democratic innovations, and the philosophy of hope. Twitter: @Antolw

Cite as: Lacelle-Webster, A. (2022) ‘To institutionalize representative deliberative processes, we need to re-imagine democratic systems‘ Edited by N. Curato. Deliberative Democracy Digest. 2nd, May. Available at: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/welcome-to-the-deliberative-democracy-digest/

People’s participation in process design

Friedel Marquardt

The OECD’s Evaluation Guidelines present a framework for evaluating deliberative processes, which is helpful for researching the increased use of deliberative minipublics around the world, as well as in understanding the conditions under which these processes work better. However, one key challenge has been to maintain the integrity of these processes.

Drawing from my ongoing work with Participedia and the Deliberative Integrity project at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra, I want to comment on process integrity in the Guidelines, specifically procedural design involvement.

There were still accounts of participants being unclear about their role in the broader deliberative initiative.

In my research, and similar to what the OECD Guidelines posit, we found that it is important for those organising and funding the deliberative process to set it up clearly and transparently to ensure integrity in the process. This includes procedural design involvement, which stresses discussing the design with various stakeholders. Something that has come up in my research but that was briefly mentioned in the report is the involvement of deliberators themselves in the process design, specifically, that deliberators know and understand what is expected of them as participants before deliberation begins.

The Guidelines do mention that ‘rules of engagement,’ ‘codes of conduct’ or ‘ethical frameworks’ be present and followed throughout the process. Yet in some ‘real-life’ cases I’ve studied, even though these may have been in place, there were still accounts of participants being unclear about their role in the broader deliberative initiative, and accounts of participants using the forum as a platform to project their views, showing misunderstanding and even disregard for the deliberative principles of mutual respect and equal opportunities to contribute (e.g., Get to Know Nuclear: Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engagement in South Australia).

Ensuring deliberators understand and are on the same page with what is required of them before and during deliberation is key for participants respecting and participating well in the process, as well as ensuring the process itself is set up with integrity and leads to a sound outcome for all who are involved.

Friedel Marquardt is a research assistant for the Deliberative Integrity project at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. To date, the team has analysed 19 Australian minipublic cases on Participedia, spanning from 2001 to 2019, to inductively gain a sense of ‘real-life’ indicators of deliberative integrity.

To find out more about the project and preliminary findings, head to deliberativeintegrityproject.org.
Cite as: Marquardt, F. (2022) ‘People’s participation in process design,’ in Risks and lessons from the deliberative wave. Edited by N. Curato. Deliberative Democracy Digest. 2nd, May. Available at: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/welcome-to-the-deliberative-democracy-digest/