No abstract

This article examines the subjective experience of cognitive and behavioural change following public deliberation in two different nations. It examines short‐ and long‐term survey data from two highly structured deliberative forums – the 2009 Australian Citizens’ Parliament and the 2010 Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review. Results showed increases in reported deliberative and internal efficacy, some measures of external efficacy, and communicative and community‐based engagement, though participants rarely reported increases in institutionalised political participation. Participants in an online process in Australia reported limited increases in their internal and external efficacy and communicative engagement. These findings suggest that well‐structured deliberative governance can transform the meaning and practice of citizenship.

The Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) distinguishes itself by linking a small deliberative body to the larger electoral process. Since 2010, CIR citizen panels have been a legislatively authorized part of Oregon general elections to promote a more informed electorate. The CIR gathers a representative cross-section of two dozen voters for 5 days of deliberation on a single ballot measure. The process culminates in the citizen panelists writing a Citizens’ Statement that the secretary of state inserts into the official Voters’ Pamphlet sent to each registered voter. This study analyzes the effect of one such Citizens’ Statement from the 2010 general election. In Study 1, an online survey experiment found that reading this Statement influenced Oregon voters’ values trade-offs, issue knowledge, and vote intentions. In Study 2, regression analysis of a cross-sectional phone survey found a parallel association between the Statement’s use and voting choices but yielded some mixed findings.

Deliberative democratic theory has proposed the use of mini-publics to discern a more reflective public opinion, which can then be conveyed to policymakers or back to the wider public. In 2009, the legislature in the State of Oregon (USA) created one such process in the Citizens’ Initiative Review to help the public make informed choices on statewide ballot measures. This study investigated how the public conceptualizes and assesses the Citizens’ Statements that Citizens’ Initiative Review panels place in the statewide Voters’ Pamphlet. We pose a series of research questions concerning how the public perceives the role of the Citizens’ Initiative Review in initiative elections. We investigate those questions with usability testing sessions held in the final weeks before the 2014 election. Forty interviews were conducted in Portland, Oregon, and 20 were held in Denver, CO, where a pilot version of the Citizens’ Initiative Review was held. Online survey data collected in Oregon and Colorado followed up on the themes that emerged from the usability tests to obtain more general findings about these electorates’ views of elections and the Citizens’ Initiative Review. Key results showed that voters found the Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements to be a useful alternative source of information, although they required more information about the Citizens’ Initiative Review to make robust trust judgments about the process. Voters were uncertain of the value of the vote tally provided by Citizens’ Initiative Review panelists, but reading the Citizens’ Initiative Review Statement inspired some to vote on ballot measures they might have skipped.

Deliberative processes can alter participants’ attitudes and behavior, but deliberative minipublics connected to macro-level discourse may also influence the attitudes of non-participants. We theorize that changes in political efficacy occur when non-participants become aware of a minipublic and utilize its deliberative outputs in their decision making during an election. Statewide survey data on the 2010 and 2012 Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Reviews tested the link between awareness and use of the Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements and statewide changes in internal and external political efficacy. Results from a longitudinal 2010 panel survey show that awareness of the Citizens’ Initiative Reviews increases respondents’ external efficacy, whereas use of the Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements on ballot measures increases respondents’ internal efficacy. A cross-sectional 2012 survey found the same associations. Moreover, the 2010 survey showed that greater exposure to—and confidence in—deliberative outputs was associated with higher levels of both internal and external efficacy.