Scaling Up Deliberative Effects—Applying Lessons of Mini-Publics

Abstract

The debate surrounding mini-publics has focused on top-down assessments about their use in the wider democratic system. This chapter inverts that analysis to explore how observation of mini-public deliberation informs possibilities for scaling up their deliberative effects—as opposed to their decisions. The effect involves in good part reversing the influences of strategic and manipulatory political discourse via discourse regulation and the activation of norms consistent with consistent with the “deliberative stance”. Scaling up the deliberativeness involves a form of mini-public trust, with a focus on the regulation of discourses by trusted peers, and deliberating citizens acting as exemplars of deliberative behaviour. To the extent that both practice and institutionalization exceed certain conditions there is scope for mini-publics to become engines for deliberative democratization.

Knowledge and the Deliberative Stance in Democratic Systems: Harnessing Scepticism of the Self in Governing Global Environmental Change

“…Building capacity to capture these dynamics beyond the mini-public could involve reforming public engagement informed by deliberative principles in ways that scale up these effects. And these reforms could involve harnessing the power of mini-publics, to the extent that they can be articulated with the wider governance system (Niemeyer & Jennstål, 2018). A good deal of work remains to be done on such approaches and their effectiveness.…”

“…Once the nature of these effects is understood, the challenge remains in terms of the mechanisms whereby they might be "scaled up" to a wider audience. There are possibilities, although much needs to be done to develop them (Niemeyer, 2014;Niemeyer & Jennstål, 2018). Shove (2010), for example, advocates an approach to understanding human relationships with the environment through the lens of "practices" rather than behaviors, and a deepening of deliberative practices in a wider democratic context seems to fit well with this approach.…”

Introduction: Deliberative Qualities of Communication

“…Communication featuring criteria of deliberation is not only believed to be desirable per se, but can also possibly counterbalance the challenges sketched previously (cf. Niemeyer & Jennstal 2018). Research on deliberation and deliberative communication in particular saw an impressive growth and diversification in recent decades.…”

Review Essay: Deepening Deliberative Democracy – Experimentation vs. Naturalization

“…Although Landemore and Tanasoca understand the problem of democracy differently, one unifying theme of their projects is the concern about how deliberative democracy can be deepened. After all, a recurring puzzle in the debates of deliberative democracy remains as to how, on the one hand, more people can be engaged for democratic deliberation and how, on the other hand, the effects of such deliberation can be scaled up (Niemeyer & Jennstål 2019). Landemore is interested in advancing structured deliberative events which can simultaneously engage a vast number of participants.…”