Deliberative methods: engaging citizens in collective decision-making

1. Deliberative methods:engaging citizens in collective decision-making Andrew Thompson University of edinburgh

2. Conflicts of interest •     Who has paid you to give talks? • My university pays my salary and my travel/subsistence costs • Who has paid you for advice? • No one • Who has funded your research? • My university through my salary • Who has paid for you to attend conferences? • My university •      Any other interest that could be connected with your work? • None, apart from academic

3. Context • Government to governance • legitimacy and authority • complexity • stakeholder involvement  better decision-making? • Current practice in learning from citizens • surveys of opinions and evaluations of services • patient /carer stories / emotional touch points • focus groups • membership of committees / fora  largely reactive and individualised

4. Definitions • Mini-publics (Dahl, 1989): assemblies of citizens, demographically representative of the larger population, brought together to learn and deliberate on a topic to inform public opinion and decision-making • Deliberation involves talk to resolve political conflict and problem-solving, through arguing, demonstrating, expressing and persuading, rather than suppression, oppression, or thoughtless neglect. (Mansbridge et al, 2012) • Two principles (Parkinson, 2004): • 1. Reasoning between people, rather than bargaining between competing interests • 2. A public act, rather than a private act (such as voting)

5. Purpose in decision-making • From: consumers shopping in the market of ideas through pre-formed individual preferences • often uninformed or unconsidered reactions • To: citizens negotiating the meaning of the public good through democratic and rational processes • more reflective engagement through learning, talking and listening

6. Stages of mini-publics • Planning and recruitment • stewarding committee (neutral and opposing views) • random and/or purposive selection • Learning • information sources and materials • witnesses/experts/activists/officials/politicians • Deliberation • small groups, face-to-face • Decision-making • reasoned recommendations or decisions • Follow-up • dissemination of outputs and outcomes

7. Characteristics of participants • Participants in mini-publics are (typically): • randomly selected • to give everyone affected an equal chance of selection • stratified • to reflect a diverse range of socio-demography and any other pertinent characteristics • remunerated • exposed to differing viewpoints • enabled to cross-examine experts (partisan and non-partisan) • supported in all stages of the process by non-partisan facilitators

8. Forms of deliberation Source: adapted from Elstub and McLaverty (2014).

9. Advantages • Allows citizens the time and resources to learn and to deliberate to reach an informed decision • Learn how citizens produce informed decisions and what affects their preferences • Engages and empowers citizens to take an active part in decisions that affect them and their communities • Places citizens in realistic dynamic and collective contexts, rather than artificial individual isolation

10. Challenges • Reflecting the population of interest • equity; diversity; involving the uninvolved • Inclusion of the activists • Prevention of agency capture by vested interests • Mitigating information bias (materials, media, experts) • Outputs are usually recommendations, not decisions • accountability to participants for outcome • Scaling-up / developing infrastructure

11. Impact • Public policy • involvement of ‘ordinary’ citizens (the ‘wise fool’ rather than the engaged activist) • rational process, rather than vested interests • testing arguments at the micro level before being made at the macro level • opportunities for learning new ways of working for all stakeholders • Participants • increased self-efficacy and empowerment in making complex decisions • Citizens more generally • seen by other citizens to offer proxies for the ‘general public’ (themselves) • Governance • can be combined with other forms of involvement/participation, including representation • increased legitimacy of decisions

12. Summary • Suited to complex and contentious problems • Generally seen as acceptable methods by citizens • A degree of independence from vested interests • Increased reliability and validity of opinions and decisions • Time consuming • Expensive • Experts and sponsors can manipulate participants • Usually one-off events, rather than continuous review

13. References • Dahl R (1989). Democracy and its critics. New Haven, Yale University Press. • Elstub S and McLaverty P (eds) (2014). Deliberative democracy: issues and cases. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. • Fishkin J (2009). When the people speak: deliberative democracy and public consultation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Mansbridge J, Bohman J, Chambers S, Christiano T, Fung A, Parkinson J, Thompson DF and Warren ME (2012). A systemic approach to deliberative democracy. In: Parkinson J and Mansbridge J (eds), Deliberative Systems: deliberative democracy at the large scale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Parkinson J (2004). Why deliberate? The encounter between deliberation and the new public managers. Public Administration, 82 (2), 377-395.

14. Potential contributions to health care • Abelson J, Forest P-G, Eyles J, Smith P, Martin E and Gauvin F-P (2003). Deliberations about deliberative methods: issues in the design and evaluation of public participation processes. Social Science & Medicine, 57, 239–251. • Gregory J, Hartz-Karp J and Watson R (2008). Using deliberative techniques to engage the community in policy development. Australia & New Zealand Health Policy, 5: 16. • Carman KL, Heeringa JW, Heil SKR, Garfinkel S, Windham A, Gilmore D, Ginsburg M, Sofaer S, Gold M and Pathak-SenE (2013). Public deliberation to elicit input on health topics: findings from a literature review. Executive summary. Publication No. EHC 13-070-EF-1. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

15. Questions? • If you wish to continue the conversation, contact me at: • andrew.thompson@ed.ac.uk