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Deliberative Impacts: The Macro-Political
Uptake of Mini-Publics
ROBERT E. GOODIN AND JOHN S. DRYZEK
Democratic theorists often place deliberative innovations such as citizen’s panels,
consensus conferences, planning cells, and deliberative polls at the center of their
hopes for deliberative democratization. In light of experience to date, the authors
chart the ways in which such mini-publics may have an impact in the “macro”
world of politics. Impact may come in the form of actually making policy, being
taken up in the policy process, informing public debates, market-testing of propos-
als, legitimation of public policies, building confidence and constituencies for poli-
cies, popular oversight, and resisting co-option. Exposing problems and failures is
all too easy. The authors highlight cases of success on each of these dimensions.
Keywords: deliberative democracy; mini-publics; consensus conferences; citi-
zen participation
In the 1990s, democratic theory famously took a “deliberative turn.” When it
did, one of the most immediate worries lay in how large groups of individuals
could genuinely deliberate together.1Various solutions have been suggested.
Some placed their hopes in conventional institutions of government such as leg-
islatures, some in civil society, others in e-networks or mass-mediated deliber-
ation, yet others in empathetic imaginings.2
219
We have received invaluable input into this article from a large number of friends and col-
leagues, including Bruce Ackerman, Louise Clery, Jim Fishkin, Archon Fung, Carolyn Hendriks,
Carolyn Lukensmeyer, Simon Niemeyer, John Parkinson, Shawn Rosenberg, Graham Smith,
Lawrence Susskind, Doug Torgerson, Avi Tucker, Steve Weatherford, Laura Zurita, and the editors
of this journal. It goes without saying that none of them is to blame for the use we have made of it.
This research was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP0342795.
POLITICS & SOCIETY, Vol. 34 No. 2, June 2006 219-244
DOI: 10.1177/0032329206288152
© 2006 Sage Publications
PAS288152.qxd 4/24/2006 4:30 PM Page 219
Still other deliberative democrats placed their hopes in “mini-publics.” These are
designed to be groups small enough to be genuinely deliberative, and representa-
tive enough to be genuinely democratic (though rarely will they meet standards of
statistical representativeness, and they are never representative in the electoral
sense). Such mini-publics include Deliberative Polls, Consensus Conferences,
Citizens’ Juries, Planning Cells, and many others (briefly described in Section I).
Importantly different though all those designs are from one another, their reliance
on small-group deliberations in mini-publics composed of ordinary citizens is
what distinguishes them from a raft of other recent democratic innovations.3
Here is an early and influential image of a mini-public from Robert Dahl, the
preeminent democratic theorist of the past generation:
Suppose an advanced democratic country were to create a “minipopulus” consisting of
perhaps a thousand citizens randomly selected out of the entire demos. Its task would be
to deliberate, for a year perhaps, on an issue and then to announce its choices. The mem-
bers of a minipopulus could “meet” by telecommunications. One minipopulus could
decide on the agenda of issues, while another might concern itself with a major issue.
Thus one minipopulus could exist for each major issue on the agenda.... It could be
attended—again by telecommunications—by an advisory committee of scholars and
specialists and by an administrative staff. It could hold hearings, commission research,
and engage in debate and discussion.
“In these ways,” Dahl writes, “the democratic process could be adapted once again
to a world that little resembles the world in which democratic ideas and practices
first came to life.”4Technology has come a long way since Dahl was writing, and
organization of a minipopulus online would now be quite straightforward.
Dahl envisages such a minipopulus “not as a substitute for legislative bodies
but as a complement.”5There are some democratic designs in which the delibera-
tions of a mini-public, typically one chosen by lot, would literally substitute for
those of an elected representative assembly.6Such authoritative assemblies have
hardly been seen since ancient Greece, however. The sorts of mini-publics we
shall be focusing on are not normally like that. The ordinary institutions of repre-
sentative democracy generally remain sovereign, such that micro-deliberative
mechanisms merely provide inputs into them. Those inputs are more formal in
some cases, less formal in others, but only in one limiting kind of case we will be
discussing does the mini-public itself share sovereignty over the decision at hand.
Thus arises the problem at the heart of the present article: how to link the
micro to the macro.7By “macro,” we mean the larger political system and its
need for collective decisions. When it comes to the macro-political impact of
micro-political innovations, mini-publics of the sort here in view rarely them-
selves determine public policy (though more than direct impact on the content of
public policy will turn out to be at issue, we shall be arguing). Generally they can
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have real political impact only by working on, and through, the broader public
sphere, ordinary institutions of representative democracy, and administrative policy
making. Here we attempt to map ways in which that might happen, providing apt
illustrations of each. Democratic theory now accords central roles to deliberating
citizens, but large questions remain unresolved concerning how citizen delibera-
tion can be consequential in democratic practice. We intend to begin answering
such questions by cataloguing, tracing, and illustrating available paths of impact.
I. MINI-PUBLICS: A BRIEF SURVEY
Recent years have seen a burgeoning of innovative democratic techniques. In
a report for the UK POWER project, Graham Smith lists fifty-seven.8Some are
proposals for specifically electoral reform. Others involve improved consulta-
tive procedures. Still others involve e-initiatives or expansions of familiar instru-
ments of direct democracy, such as referenda.9We shall be concentrating here,
more narrowly, on mini-publics.
These are designs in which small groups of people deliberate together.
(Sometimes many such small groups meet simultaneously or sequentially, at the
same venue or at separate ones.) We will be focusing on mini-publics with some
claim to representativeness of the public at large. Representation is something
of a conceptual thicket in political theory.10 By “some claim,” we do not mean
statistical representativeness—which only one design, the deliberative poll, explic-
itly asserts. Nor do we mean electoral representation. All “some claim to represen-
tativeness” need mean is that the diversity of social characteristics and plurality
of initial points of view in the larger society are substantially present in the
deliberating mini-public. Social characteristics and viewpoints need not be pre-
sent in the same proportions as in the larger population, nor need members of
the mini-public be accountable to the larger population in the way elected rep-
resentatives are.
In focusing on mini-publics with claims to representativeness, we stress
forums involving lay citizens and non-partisans. Thus we say little about famil-
iar consultative mechanisms in which participants exclusively self-select or are
selected on the basis of their partisanship—public inquiries, stakeholder dia-
logues, mediation, regulatory negotiation, and so forth—except for purposes of
comparison. Many of the macro-impact issues we address will also arise in
these kinds of partisan forums, though in principle impact should be more
straightforward, given that key players in the macro system are often present in
partisan deliberative forums.11 Our definition of mini-public is narrower than
that of Fung, who would include under the mini-public heading exercises that
rely completely on self-selection.12 Of course, there is an element of self-selection
in all deliberative microcosms: citizens must agree to participate, and many
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decline. In some designs, participants are selected from among those who have
registered an interest in participating in this kind of forum via a Web site or
phone line. Yet these designs remain very different from those that rely com-
pletely on self-selection, which are likely to attract only strong partisans.
Thus, in contrast to Fung, our definition of “mini-publics” would exclude
what is perhaps the most widely discussed recent innovation in participatory-
cum-deliberative decision making, especially when it comes to direct impact on
policy making: Participatory Budgeting in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.
Begun there in 1989 and spreading to many other cities in Brazil and Latin
America in subsequent years, Participatory Budgeting involves three tiers of
decision making: first, a set of popular Regional Assemblies, open to all; then
Regional Budget Forums, whose members are elected by the Regional Assemblies;
and finally, Municipal Budget Councils elected by Regional Assemblies.13
Certainly Participatory Budgeting is a great success in participatory terms.14
It is also a great success in terms of macro-political impact, with budget priori-
ties and representatives to the Forums and Councils being determined by direct
vote in the popular Regional Assemblies. But these are not mini-publics of the
sort we are discussing here. The participants are either self-selected (in the case
of the Regional Assemblies) or elected (by the Regional Assemblies, for the
other two tiers).
Complete reliance on self-selection is also true of another much-discussed
set of cases (by Fung and others), involving “community policing” in Chicago.15
Substantial amounts of control are devolved onto “beat meetings,” where small
groups of police and citizens engage in “deliberative problem-solving” on an ongo-
ing basis. Those are certainly instances of genuine empowerment of local commu-
nities; and when everything goes well (as it sometimes does not), they involve
genuine micro-level deliberations across the lay and professional participants. But
since “beat meetings” were simply open meetings, participants were self-selected
and hence not a microcosm of the ordinary public. The same is true of community
consultations conducted in connection with Oregon health care reform.16
We also exclude deliberation in courts, legislatures, and administrative agen-
cies, though they figure centrally in some theories of deliberative democracy.17
Formal institutions of government have constitutional power or statutory authority
to determine outcomes. Their members have that authority by virtue of having
been formally elected or appointed to certain offices of state. Of course, in a sys-
tem of mixed government, there will be other branches or officials that may try
to ignore or override their determinations, so the problem at the heart of the pre-
sent article might thus arise in a different way there too. But formally empow-
ered bodies generally have a different kind of claim for their determinations
to be taken seriously than do the mini-publics upon which we here focus. The
latter have no constitutional claim to share in formal macro-political decision
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making. At most, and very rarely, they have a politically (but not constitutionally)
guaranteed place in policy making on a particular issue. The more usual case is that
mini-publics lack formal power or authority in the macro-political system. They
might sometimes have been established by some public authority. They might
report to it. But when they do, their reports are purely advisory and lack even any
presumptive lawmaking power of their own. The problem of how the macro-
political “takes up” their micro-deliberative input thus arises in acute form.
Among the most interesting forms of mini-public are the following:18
•Citizens’ Juries, initiated in the United States by Ned Crosby and the
Jefferson Center he founded in 1974, have been run sporadically there
and more widely in other countries since. Citizens’ Juries receive infor-
mation, hear evidence, cross-examine witnesses, and then deliberate on
the issue at hand. Typically, but not invariably, the Citizens’Jury has been
commissioned by some public agency to whom its recommendations are
addressed. Citizens’ Juries are especially common in Blair’s Britain.19
One of the more dramatic episodes, however, came in Canada in 2004,
when the government of Ontario appointed a Minister for Democratic
Renewal to preside over the establishment of Citizens’Juries of twelve to
twenty-four citizens, selected by stratified sampling to promote demo-
graphic representativeness, deliberating over 2-4 days to provide advice
on specific aspects of the province’s budget.20 Planning Cells in Germany
operate broadly similarly, with a number of deliberating groups running
in parallel in a longer, multi-stage process.21
•Consensus Conferences, initiated by the Danish Board of Technology in
1987, have been run there and across the world with some frequency
since.22 In the original Danish model, a small group of fifteen lay citizens
holds two weekend-long preparatory meetings to set the agenda for a four-
day public forum; there, experts give testimony and are questioned, after
which the lay panel retires to write a report. That is presented at the end
of the fourth day to a press conference, typically attracting attention from
politicians and the media. In Denmark, that public forum is then followed
by a set of local debates, also organized by the Board of Technology.
A 2003 enactment of the U.S. Congress specifies Consensus Conferences as
one way of the responsible agency discharging its obligation of “ensuring
that ethical, legal, environmental and other appropriate social concerns...
are considered during the development of nanotechnology.”23
•Deliberative Polls, initiated by James S. Fishkin and his Center for
Deliberative Polling in 1988, have now been run in several countries
around the world.24 Deliberative Polls gather a random sample of between
250 and 500 citizens. They hear evidence from experts, break up into
smaller groups (around fifteen people each) to frame questions to put to
the experts, and then reassemble in plenary session to pose those ques-
tions to panels of experts. Before-and-after surveys of participants are
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taken, to measure both information acquisition and opinion change over
the course of the exercise. Larger and more expensive enterprises,
Deliberative Polls are typically run in collaboration with media outlets,
which publicize the results. In their book Deliberation Day, Ackerman
and Fishkin propose that this model be expanded into a nationwide
Deliberative Poll before national elections, involving simultaneous
events across the country in which literally all citizens would be invited
to participate.25
•AmericaSpeaks, founded by Carolyn Lukensmeyer in 1997, organizes a
series of “21st Century Town Meetings.”26 Those are one-day events
involving between 500 and 5,000 people deliberating on some specific
issue. Participant selection procedures vary, but efforts are made to
ensure reasonably representative samples of citizens. They operate through
moderated small-group discussions at demographically mixed tables of
ten to twelve people. Feedback from these tables is immediately pooled
via networked computers and sifted by the organizers to form the basis
for subsequent discussions. Large video screens present data, themes, and
information in real time over the course of the deliberations. As themes
emerge and votes are taken, recommendations gel. Key stakeholders pro-
duce background materials and, together with public authorities, typi-
cally attend the event. The most famous AmericaSpeaks Town Meetings
were a pair called “Listening to the City: Rebuilding Lower Manhattan”
after the 9/11 destruction—more of which below.
•National Issues Forums, an initiative of the Kettering Foundation, annu-
ally convenes a U.S.-wide network of over 3,000 locally sponsored
public forums of varying sizes and selection procedures to discuss
selected issues.27 The foundation collates feedback into reports that it
then circulates to elected officials. Drawing on the National Issues
Forums, a Deliberative Poll called the National Issues Conference was
convened in the run-up to the 1996 U.S. presidential elections; the event
was broadcast on PBS, was anchored by Jim Lehrer, and had an esti-
mated 10 million viewers.28 Another 2003 National Issues Forums
Deliberative Poll, also in collaboration with McNeil-Lehrer Productions,
focused on “America in the World.”29
•“GM Nation?” was a “public debate” organized by (but at arm’s-length
from) the UK government as part of a national consultation on geneti-
cally modified food in June 2003.30 The main debate of some 675 “open
community meetings” involved individuals who were purely self-selected;
that component of the debate is not therefore the sort of mini-public we
are focusing upon here. There was, however, another component of “GM
Nation?” that did involve deliberative groups of the sort of interest here.
To provide more structured analysis of community response to the issues
and to serve as a cross-check for results from the open meetings, organizers
also convened ten “Narrow but Deep” groups. Each of those groups held
two daylong meetings a fortnight apart providing their views on issues
that arose in the open meetings.
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II. POSSIBLE PATHWAYS TO INFLUENCE
How might mini-publics affect political decision making? Possible modes of
influence are many and varied. So too are the possible ways in which the macro-
political system might “abuse” mini-publics, using them in ways that undermine
the democratic or deliberative quality of the larger political process. Our aim here is
to catalogue the various ways mini-publics might possibly affect the macro-political
system, for better or for worse, providing instances of each. A detailed catalogue is
necessary to counter those skeptical of the impact of such innovations, and to illu-
minate the subtle as well as the obvious ways they can make a difference.
A. Actually Making Policy
The limiting case of actually “making policy” occurs when a forum is for-
mally empowered as part of a decision-making process. Cases are still rare,
though deliberationists (us among them) hope they will become increasingly
common.31 The most famous recent case is that of the Citizen’s Assembly on
Electoral Reform in British Columbia.32 That assembly, composed of 160 ran-
domly selected citizens, was established by a unanimous enactment of the
provincial legislature and charged with the task of recommending an electoral
system for the province. If it recommended changed arrangements, the provin-
cial government committed itself to putting that proposal to the electorate at
large in a referendum at the next year’s elections.
After an initial set of weekend meetings to inform members concerning alter-
native electoral systems, the assembly held fifty public hearings (attended by
3,000 citizens and receiving 1,600 written submissions) and then spent six
weekends deliberating. In December 2004, it recommended a version of single-
transferable vote which was put to referendum the next May.
The Citizen’s Assembly was constituted as a formal part of the political system.
It was legislatively charged with making a recommendation that would automati-
cally go onto the ballot as a referendum proposal. That was an ironclad commit-
ment from the provincial government from the start. In that central respect, the
macro-political uptake of this mini-public’s recommendation was hardwired.
Of course, it was then an open question whether or not the Citizen’s Assembly’s
recommendations would be approved in that referendum. Ultimately they were
not.33 Still, having its recommendations considered and rejected is importantly dif-
ferent from having them ignored altogether, which is the fate threatening purely
advisory recommendations of mini-publics discussed next.
B. Taken Up in the Policy Process
The much more frequent case occurs when a mini-public provides recom-
mendations to ordinary macro-political processes, with no formal guarantee that
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the recommendations will be taken any further at all (much less adopted and
implemented) in the macro-political process. Sometimes, organizers of a forum
will seek a “guarantee” (hard or soft) in advance from government officials that
the forum will be an integral part of a decision-making process; this is a stan-
dard feature of the AmericaSpeaks procedure and a not uncommon feature of
Citizens’ Juries. In Denmark, there is an expectation (although no formal legal
requirement) for Parliament and political parties to respond explicitly to the rec-
ommendations of Consensus Conferences organized by the Danish Board of
Technology. For an example of ways in which Danish Consensus Conference
have directly influenced legislation, note that the
conferences that were held in the late 1980s influenced the Danish Parliament to pass
legislation limiting the use of genetic screening in hiring and insurance decisions, to
exclude genetically modified animals from the government’s initial biotechnology
research and development program, and to prohibit food irradiation for everything except
dry spices.34
Of course, it cannot be proven that the Consensus Conference was the decisive
influence; skeptics might say this is what government policy could have been
anyway
In at least one peculiar case, a policy maker allegedly guaranteed in advance
that he would not respond to the recommendations of a citizen’s forum. A citi-
zen’s jury on container deposit legislation financed by the government of New
South Wales was seen as a potential source of threat by the beverage industry,
which reportedly secured a commitment in advance from Premier Bob Carr that
no legislation would be introduced, whatever the jury recommended.35
Mini-publics involve (at most) “only a few hundred [citizens] who are given
a chance to learn, think and deliberate.” Yet they can make claims to represent
informed public opinion on an issue. The designers of deliberative polls claim
that participants “are a scientifically chosen random sample and their views
therefore represent what the... people would think if they became similarly
more knowledgeable about... policy.”36 They thus “represent what the public
would think about the issue if it were motivated to become more informed and
to consider competing arguments.”37
That fact might give mini-publics the power to influence public policy mak-
ing in various ways. One might be that policy makers take the opinion of peo-
ple informed in the course of these events as authoritative, in preference to
“raw” public opinion. “The judgment of a minipopulus,” Dahl says,
would “represent” the judgment of the demos. Its verdict would be the verdict of the
demos itself, if the demos were able to take advantage of the best available knowledge to
decide what policies were most likely to achieve the ends it sought. The judgments of the
minipopulus would thus derive their authority from the legitimacy of democracy.38
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Of course, it is an open question whether decision makers will prefer this kind
of public opinion to raw and uninformed public opinion (or lack of opinion) that
the mass of ordinary voters will still exhibit. Electoral considerations might sug-
gest a preference for the latter.
Positive influence is, however, possible. As a way of discharging their statu-
tory public-consultation requirements, eight electric utilities in different parts of
Texas commissioned Deliberative Polls between 1996 and 1998, asking customers
how they preferred that future electricity requirements to be met. The results showed
a sharp increase in participants’ support for investments in energy conservation
measures, and also strong willingness to pay more for energy if it came from
renewable sources.
The results of those Deliberative Polls affected public policy in two ways,
one very direct and the other only slightly less so. First,
as a result of the deliberative polls, the utility companies began to integrate consumer
values about energy choices into their [Integrated Resource Plan] filings [to the state
Public Utility Commission] . . . and decisions that followed tended to include renewable
energy investments, paid for by all consumers. Several of the companies also received
regulatory approval to start renewable energy marketing (“green pricing”) programs on
a pilot basis.39
Second, “in 1999, the Texas Legislature enacted Senate Bill 7, which”—among
other things—“established a renewable energy development standard that requires
all for-profit retail sellers of electricity to obtain approximately 3% of their elec-
tricity supplies from renewable energy sources by 2009.... The legislation also
set new conservation goals.” Cautious commentators say,
While it would be disingenuous to suggest that the results of the deliberative polling process
alone were responsible for the regulatory and legislative changes that followed, the polls did,
for the first time, provide for public consultation in a systematic and scientific manner....
The contribution of the deliberative polls was to provide a measurement of what is impor-
tant to those affected by energy statutes and regulation—the public.... The deliberative
polling results validated what advocates of renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-
income assistance had argued for some time but could not necessarily prove: that customers
support these public benefits expenditures and are willing to pay for them.40
A less cautious conclusion is suggested by their report’s subtitle “How
Deliberative Polling Helped Build 1000 MW of New Renewable Energy
Projects in Texas.”
Certainly their organizer is bullish in attributing those policy changes to the
effects of his Deliberative Polls. Fishkin proudly proclaims that
based on the results of the Deliberative Polls, [the Texas Utility Commissioners] imple-
mented plans that yielded the largest investments in renewable energy in the history of
the state. Later the legislature, when it de-regulated the utility industry, used the results
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of the Deliberative Poll to justify including a substantial renewable energy portfolio in
the legislation.41
C. Informing Public Debates
In a Pew Charitable Trust survey of organizations sponsoring citizen dia-
logues of one sort or another, no less than 45 percent reported that “one of their
major goals was simply to provide information.”42 Information would flow both
to those involved directly in policy debates and (ideally) to larger publics. One
way to influence broader publics is via media coverage of deliberative events.43
Advocates of mini-publics characteristically argue that the media should give
more publicity to their results. “Why so little coverage?” they ask. “Shouldn’t
informed public opinion count for more than uninformed public opinion?”44 The
answer to this second question may not be straightforward, as we have just noted.
Such media coverage might influence people’s behavior in various ways. It
might lead them to become more interested in the topic and acquire more and
better information about it.45 Media coverage of mini-publics might also alter
people’s policy preferences directly, if they became persuaded that they ought
to shift their own preferences in line with those of their more informed but other-
wise identical counterparts.46 According to Fishkin, “In the Deliberative Poll
before the 1999 Australian referendum,” for example, “we can clearly see from
other polls that the broadcasts and newspaper articles had a significant effect”—
albeit one that had dissipated by the time voting began.47
Another Australian case of a mini-public informing public debate is that of
a consensus conference on genetically modified foods that took place in 1999.48
Prior to the conference, public debate on this issue was minimal. The conference
helped raise the profile of the issue, receiving substantial media coverage, and
it was cited in subsequent legislative debates. Monsanto, the main commercial
sponsor of genetic technology, was forced to change its communications strat-
egy. The company dispatched a representative to the consensus conference who
treated it as a public relations occasion, patronizing the citizen participants
as being in need of a bit of instruction and reassurance about the safety of the
technology.49 This representative was so chastened by the citizen’s panel’s
hostile reaction that, when it came to delivery of the report, he had retreated
from his reserved seat on the floor of the chamber to the obscurity of the bal-
cony. For the first time Monsanto realized they could lose the public relations
battle, and needed to take public skepticism more seriously. Along with Monsanto,
the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (a pro-GM
government body) became aware of the need to engage the public in dialogue,
rather than simply educate and inform. The consensus conference recommended
caution in proceeding with the technology, but did not recommend a ban or
moratorium.
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That was also the case with Danish procedures of technology assessment more
generally. There, even Danish Council of Industry representatives agree that
corporations have benefited from their nation’s participatory approach to technology
assessment because “product developers have worked in a more critical environment,
thus being able to forecast some of the negative reactions and improve their products in
the early phase.” For example, Novo Nordisk, a large Danish biotechnology company,
reevaluated its research and development strategies after a 1992 panel deplored the
design of animals suited to the rigors of existing agricultural systems but endorsed the
use of genetic engineering to help treat incurable diseases. The firm now wants to con-
centrate on work more likely to win popular approval, such as animal-based production
of drugs for severe human illnesses.50
D. Shaping Policy by Market Testing
The phrase “market testing” points to an analogy with commerce, and there
are indeed instances of commercial ventures benefiting in just this way from
politically commissioned mini-publics. The cases of Texas utility companies,
Monsanto, and Novo Nordisk discussed above are cases in point. But politicians
need to “market-test” their proposals too.
The key question, to which mini-publics can provide a clear answer, is “Can
we sell this to the public, however hard we try, however much we increase public
awareness, information, etc.?” Much of the consultative apparatus traditionally
used by governments—public inquiries and Green Papers in the United Kingdom,
remiss procedures in Scandinavia,51 congressional hearings in the United States—
have long had that as their aim, however dubious the marketing language might
seem from the viewpoint of some democratic ideals. Marketing experts have long
used “focus groups” to market-test products, and political consultants have been
using the same techniques for years to market-test political pitches.
Mini-publics of the sorts described above can serve the same function for the
macro-political system more generally. Sometimes, sponsors get a clear and sur-
prising “yes” to the question “Can we sell this to people?” as with the Deliberative
Polls on renewable energy in Texas in the example discussed above. Sometimes,
they get a clear “no.”
A case of the latter sort comes from World Trade Center site planning. The
pair of AmericaSpeaks 21st Century Town Meetings, “Listening to the City,” had
a clear—if, in the first instance, primarily negative—impact on plans for rebuild-
ing lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.52
One major concern of the owner of the site, the Port Authority, was to replace
rapidly all the commercial space that had been lost on the site in order to restore
the $120 million annual revenue stream it had lost. But the Lower Manhattan
Development Corporation—the agency responsible for approving the plans—
“wanted to learn as much as they could about the public’s evaluation of the
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elements that made up those concept plans—and they got that information.” This
willingness may have had more to do with a desire to avoid political trouble than
a genuine wish to learn from informed public opinion. However, the upshot of the
“Listening to the City” exercise was a “unanimous” and “resounding rejection” of
those Port Authority priorities.53
As summarized by the official report of the proceedings,
[P]eople voiced strong objections to elements of all six proposals, particularly the dense
office and commercial development they called for. Participants said that although the
concept plans seemed to meet the Port Authority’s desire to replace the offices, retail
space and hotel rooms destroyed on September 11, they did not provide an appropriate
setting for a memorial, nor did they reflect the economic realities facing the city and the
metropolitan area....
A consensus was quickly reached that all the proposals were fundamentally inade-
quate.54
This political uptake of the message was as prompt as the message was clear, as
the official report describes it:
The messages generated by this committed, energized assembly—one of the largest gath-
erings of its kind—reached decision-makers quickly and unmistakably. . . . “Listening to
the City” had a direct and swift impact on the fate of these concept plans. Just weeks after
the six plans were introduced as a starting point for discussing, the program they were
based upon was set aside, largely because of the sharp criticism at “Listening to the City”
and other public feedback.... Shortly after “Listening to the City,” LMDC and the Port
Authority pledged that a new program will be developed.
It is perfectly fair to say that “other than skewering the six plans and calling
for a reduction in the amount of commercial space, the meeting hadn’t produced
many concrete recommendations for how to design the site.”55 The impact of
this mini-public was thus of a largely negative sort, at least in the first instance.
Still, vetoing all six initial proposals and forcing a rethink of the fundamental
planning concepts upon which they all rested are clear accomplishments of the
market-testing sort. This may not have been the intention of the planning author-
ities, who in subsequent years were able to shift policy back to more standard
commercial concerns. And while the organizers of Listening to the City stress
its impact, there were parallel debates in the broader public sphere whose tone
was equally critical of the plans, so it is hard to determine just how decisive this
particular mini-public was.
Another example of market testing is the “GM Nation?” exercise in the
United Kingdom. The exercise did not achieve the endorsement of GM foods
sought by the pro-GM forces in the British government that launched it. Neither
did the process enjoy high esteem among the public at large: “many actions and
statements by government around the time of the debate” tended “to undermine
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the credibility of the debate process”; and there was in consequence “widespread
cynicism among both participants and the wider public about the likely impact
of the debate on government policy.”56
Nonetheless, there were clear messages emerging from both the “open com-
munity meetings” and the more genuinely deliberative “Narrow but Deep” compo-
nents. “Key messages” as summarized in the Executive Summary of the official
report of the exercise were as follows:
1. People are generally uneasy about GM.
2. The more people engage in GM issues, the harder their attitudes and more
intense their concerns.
3. There is little support for early commercialization.
4. There is widespread mistrust of government and multinational companies.
5. There is a broad desire to know more and for further research to be done.57
In a nutshell, “the key message was caution.”58
In important respects, the U.K. government in its official response stubbornly
refused to accept that message:
We take public concern very seriously, and we recognize the need to address the people’s
legitimate anxieties about GM crops. But having weighed up all the evidence, we have
concluded that we should continue to assess each GM crop on an individual case-by-case
basis.... We have looked at [people’s] concerns carefully, and we have concluded that
for the most part the regulatory regime which is now in place is capable of addressing
them, but that on some issues further action is required.59
Thus, despite the government’s insistence that all was well, the “GM Nation?”
debate—and especially its more genuinely deliberative “Narrow but Deep” com-
ponent, by which government explicitly set most store—succeeded in extracting
some “further action” from government.60 Those specific measures came in the
areas of “providing choice for consumers and farmers,” “mandatory labelling for
consumers,” and steps to ensure the “coexistence” of GM and non-GM crops.61
Beyond those specific measures, the government committed itself, first and fore-
most, to “protect human health and the environment through robust regulation of
GM crops on a case-by-case basis, consistent with the precautionary principle.”62
Now, in a way that changes nothing. The case-by-case regulatory structure
remains the same; the precautionary principle has long been official policy, both
in the United Kingdom and the EU. Protecting human health and the environ-
ment are policy objectives of long standing. Every regulatory regime purports to
be “robust.” But the U.K. government wanted to change matters in a pro-GM
direction, and in this it did not succeed.
Even—or perhaps especially—where the upshot of the market testing is a
frustrating “no,” politicians are clearly better off knowing it to be a lost cause
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before staking too much of their reputations and political capital on it. And it is
not just good for politicians, in a narrowly careerist sense: it is good for the
macro-political system—in terms of its functionality, its legitimacy, and its
democratic responsiveness—not to try to force wildly unacceptable proposals
down citizens’ throats.
E. Legitimating Policy
Mini-publics can help legitimate public policies in whose process of production
they play a part, however symbolic that part may be. Recall Dahl’s words, quoted
earlier: “The judgments of a minipopulus would ‘represent’ the judgment of the
demos... [and] would thus derive their authority from the legitimacy of democ-
racy.”63 As such they would lend legitimacy to particular policy recommendations.
Mini-publics can sometimes connect in appropriate ways to widely accepted
democratic values, as the case of a citizens’ jury convened to consider hospital
restructuring in Leicester, England, illustrates. Citizens’ Juries had been heavily
promoted in the United Kingdom by the Institute for Public Policy Research, an
independent think-tank co-founded by Patricia Hewitt who went on to become
a Labour MP and then secretary of state for health. Citizens’ Juries have been
widely used in the United Kingdom to resolve a raft of knotty local issues. One
example concerns plans to reconfigure hospital services in Hewitt’s own Leicester
constituency.
The background is this. The city of Leicester had three main hospitals:
Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester General, and Glenfield. The Leicestershire
Health Authority grew concerned that
“planned care” services for chronic disease and rehabilitation were suffering because
acute care was taking up too many resources. Following four years of consultation and
planning with hospital-based specialists and other medical interests, they proposed con-
centrating accident and emergency services at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and
General, moving some other acute services from Glenfield, and devoting Glenfield to
planned care services.64
When the Health Authority announced that plan in late 1999, however, “a storm
of protest erupted,” centering mainly around the fact that it would involve relo-
cating “a heart unit and breast care services [that] had just been set up at Glenfield
largely thanks to major public appeals for donations rather than direct govern-
ment spending.” A petition opposing the plan collected 150,000 signatures, the
media were mobilized, and MPs and local councilors got involved.
At the suggestion of Patricia Hewitt, a Citizens’ Jury was established to help
the Health Authority find a way out of the conundrum. It met for four days in
March 2000, hearing witnesses and deliberating. In its recommendations, the
Citizens’ Jury endorsed the Health Authority’s desire for one of the city’s hos-
pitals to specialize in “planned care”; but “to the delight of the protestors,” it
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recommended that that site be the General, not Glenfield. The Health Authority
accepted that recommendation and set about implementing it.65
As one of the leading health administrators involved in the process is quoted
as having said,
You could look at it [the Citizens’ Jury] as being a way out for us in a particular messy
situation.... We almost got to the point where there was an impasse.... It [the Citizens’
Jury] was the single biggest factor that freed up the next steps in the review process....
If we hadn’t done that Jury, we would not have got through.66
Thus, beyond its clear impact on policy (the sort of “take-up” effect discussed
in Section II.B), the citizens’ jury played a key role in legitimating policy in the
eyes of divided and skeptical publics.
Mini-publics can lack the sort of legitimacy possessed by representatives who
have been elected, or even appointed to “act on behalf” of the public. Even statis-
tically representative samples as claimed in deliberative polling hold no “commis-
sions” from the public at large. They have not been “authorized” by them to speak
on their behalf.67 The sheer numbers participating in an event may, however
increase legitimating force. This is why AmericaSpeaks typically seeks very large
numbers, much larger than required by statistical significance (even if the sample
were statistically representative, which it is not), or to make sure all points of view
are present. “Thousands” has a legitimating impact greater than “hundreds.” (One
AmericaSpeaks pamphlet is actually entitled “Millions of Voices.”)
The decisions of bodies with formal legal authority might be more widely
respected across the rest of the macro-political system the more conspicuously
they involve the deliberative engagement of a wide, representative group of
ordinary citizens. Even though they eventually failed by a narrow margin in
the subsequent referendum, the recommendations of the Citizen’s Assembly on
Electoral Reform enjoyed more credence than they otherwise would have pre-
cisely for their having emerged from protracted deliberations among a repre-
sentative sample of citizens of British Columbia.68
Mini-publics will not necessarily promote legitimacy in the eyes of skeptical
publics, who may suppose the real aim is to “sell” a policy rather than genuinely
to listen to public views on the matter (this is different from the market testing
described earlier). Skepticism here can draw on long experience with public
inquiries whose conclusion is preordained, or whose impacts are minimal if they
depart from their script. Publics can be doubtful that macro-political actors will
take any notice of what mini-publics conclude, particularly if they come to the
“wrong” conclusions. The minimally responsive official government response
to the “GM Nation?” exercise in the United Kingdom is just the last in a long
list of such experiences there.
Finally, mini-publics designed to legitimize certain policies can sometimes
end up legitimizing activist disobedience. For oppositional groups that feel an
obligation to give the system “one last chance,” a mini-public might well look
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like that “last best chance.” Suppose that the recommendations of that mini-
public vindicate the position of those oppositional groups, but that the macro-
political system fails to respond appropriately to the clear recommendations of
the public in its more informed and reflective form. Or it might become clear
that the forum was being used by governmental actors to buy time, in the hope
public attention to the issue would wane. Oppositional groups might reasonably
conclude that more activist responses are then warranted.69
F. Confidence Building/Constituency Building
Participatory processes may promote “empowerment” in the psychological or
sociological rather than the strictly legal-political sense.70 Even if the consultative
procedures are purely advisory, the mobilization of people to participate in them
often has two further effects, both of which are of indirect political consequence.
One is to give people participating in the consultation a psychological boost in
confidence—and often on good grounds, insofar as they acquired additional infor-
mation, insights, and skills in the course of engaging in the process.71 A second
effect is sociological: insofar as large groups of people were mobilized to partici-
pate in the consultative process, groups thus mobilized will be in a better position
to bring political pressure to bear on the macro-political system in other (e.g.,
electoral) ways as well. We note that most members of the British Columbia
Citizens’ Assembly participated actively in public debate leading up to the refer-
endum after their formal role had ceased, and they were no longer being paid.
How much difference mini-publics make in these indirect ways to the operation
of the macro-political system depends largely upon just how “micro” they are, that
is, on just how few or many citizens are involved in them, though media cover-
age may help compensate for small numbers. A Citizens’ Jury or Consensus
Conference involves only 12-20 citizens. In other cases, however, moderately large
numbers of people are involved in the mini-public. AmericaSpeaks Town Meetings
involve up to 5,000 people, for example. That is a small fraction of the total popu-
lation of New York City. Still, mobilizing that many people on a highly sensitive
issue like rebuilding on the World Trade Center site can make a real difference to
the way the macro-political system processes that issue. Or, for another example,
consider the community meetings to advise on the implementation of the Oregon
Basic Health Care Act: 1,003 people is a small proportion of total citizens of
Oregon, but their having met in forty-six committee meetings across the state
arguably helped to constitute a powerful constituency in support of that scheme.72
For a simple, telling example, consider the case of the Reconnecting Commu-
nities and Schools project in South Carolina in 1998-2000. The process was to
convene
a series of public meetings . . . under the auspices of a steering committee comprised of
citizens selected by the school district as broadly representative of the community... to
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discuss their aspirations for the community, what keeps people apart and what brings
them together in the community, and what role the schools should play in the commu-
nity. After completion of the public meetings, the steering committee would select 50 cit-
izens reflecting the demographics of the community in terms of ethnicity, age, social
class, residence and parental status to come together in a ‘community conversation’ to
forge an ‘agreement’ that would outline what they hope different segments of the local
area would do to reconnect schools with the community.73
Such Reconnecting experiments had a great many very useful schooling-
specific outcomes in all three communities in which they were conducted. But
the one in Horry County had empowering effects of a dramatic sort. By way of
background, “as part of its economic development strategy, South Carolina
allows local governments to grant tax exemptions to particular kinds of business
park developments.” When Horry County authorities proposed granting such an
exemption for a large development that would result in substantial lost revenue
for the local schools, which are of course funded from the tax revenues from
which the developers were being exempted, the school district filed suit against
the city and county.
This lawsuit is unprecedented, and represents an assertion that school districts should
have an equal standing in local development decisions from which they have tradition-
ally been sidelined. School district officials were clear in saying that they could not have
filed this lawsuit without Reconnecting:
•[A member of the school board said,] “A few years ago the school district
would have had no choice but to take what . . . the county planning com-
mission gave them, but Reconnecting has shown the Superintendent and
the board what the community wants us to do, and it has given the com-
munity a reason to support the district’s decision to stand up and fight.”
•[A school district official reports,] “[I]t would be hard for anyone to
argue that the same thing would have happened without Reconnecting.
When we had to go out and make our case to the people, they were lis-
tening with ‘new ears,’ and they could see that it just didn’t make sense
to go on diverting tax money from education to subsidize developers at
the same time that the community wants to make itself a center of growth
for high tech R&D.”74
G. Popular Oversight
Participatory, consultative mechanisms also sometimes serve as a means of
public oversight forcing official accountability.75
All mini-publics serve this function to some extent, insofar as they take tes-
timony (albeit typically on a voluntary basis) from representatives of public
agencies and from their critics. They might serve this function more success-
fully had they the power (de jure or de facto) to require public officials to appear
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before them to testify. To serve this function most successfully would require
ongoing or recurring mini-publics, rather than one-off micro-deliberations.76
A model might be the “community policing” arrangements in Chicago.
These do not qualify as mini-publics in our terms, purely because “beat meet-
ings” are “open” to all comers, such that self-selection effects are greater. Still,
levels of participation have been high: some “12 per cent of adults in Chicago
report that they have attended at least one community-policing meeting”; and,
reversing the ordinary participation bias, residents from poor and less well-educated
neighborhoods turn out at much higher rates than those from wealthy ones . . . because
they have high stakes—increasing their own physical security—in the issue at hand.77
Whether or not “beat meetings” themselves qualify as our sort of mini-publics,
they provide an example of how other sorts of deliberations could be organized
and empowered to provide greater popular oversight of public authorities.
As described by Fung,
deliberation in community policing beat meetings is structured according to a . . . problem-
solving process. Police and residents begin by using a “brainstorming” process to generate
a comprehensive list of crime and safety problems in their neighborhood. They then agree
to focus on two or three listed items as priority issues, then pool information and perspec-
tives to develop analyses of these problems. From these analyses, they construct strategies
and a division of labor to implement these strategies. The success of the strategies is assessed
in subsequent meetings. Groups typically try to develop additional strategies to address stub-
born problems or take on new problems after resolving old ones. This short feedback loop
between planning, implementation, and assessment increases both the practical capabilities
and the problem-solving success of residents and police officers in each beat.78
In addition to this sort of creative, collaborative problem solving, “beat meet-
ings” also serve to monitor police performance directly. “The poor quality of police
performance and their shirking is a frequent topic of beat meeting discussions. This
deliberative design thus increases the accountability of street-level police officers.”79
“Beat meetings” provide a model of mini-public oversight of street-level
activities of public authorities. The U.S. statute specifying use of Consensus
Conferences, Citizens’ Juries, and such like to provide public input into nano-
technology research and development policy provides an example at the “policy”
end of the spectrum.80
H. Resisting Co-option
A standard complaint with government consultative mechanisms is that they
“co-opt” opponents of proposed policies. By “bringing them into the process,”
co-optive arrangements can deprive these groups of any legitimacy for continuing
opposition to the policies, once they have been approved by processes in which
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the groups have participated. “They have had their say, and they lost fair and
square” is what would-be co-opters hope that people will be thinking.81
This could be more of an issue with consultative processes involving large orga-
nized groups than it is with deliberative processes involving small(ish) numbers of
ordinary citizens. Critics complain of pressure toward consensus in deliberative
designs oriented toward generating a list of agreed “recommendations.”82 But that
pressure is felt by, at most, the small(ish) number of individuals involved. Even if
they are somehow co-opted in the process, the vast majority of citizens have not
been directly touched by that process, and no organized group of policy advocates
or opponents has been defanged—though they still might fear this.82
Beyond all that, the discursive component of mini-publics makes their proceed-
ings particularly hard to predict or control, and hence unsuited to co-option. A case
in point is the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel, a discursive design a bit different
from the kind we are emphasizing because it involved stakeholders as deliberators.
When the British Columbia government was under pressure to take measures
to prevent clear-cutting of ancient forests on Clayoquot Sound, it appointed “a
‘scientific panel’ of experts to determine world class forestry guidelines.’”
Initially, “this move . . . was greeted by considerable skepticism by many who
viewed the formation of the scientific panel as a typical technocratic effort to
quell dissent while maintaining established patterns of power.... Things,how-
ever, did not turn out as expected.” Torgerson explains,
The scientific panel consisted not only of scientists and conventional experts, but also of
several representatives of the First Nations, who exerted a significant impact on the
panel.... As it developed, the scientific panel thus incorporated diverse perspectives,
including that of traditional ecological knowledge.... The success of the panel members
in bridging often divergent orientations was a result of serious work to develop common
understandings, particularly including efforts by First Nations representatives to educate
other members of the panel about their outlook. It is notable, however, that the other
members turned out to be receptive.84
The recommendations that have come out of the Scientific Panel reflect this
broadened understanding: “No one now claims that the scientific panel was a tech-
nocratic cover-up. The criticism instead is that the recommendations of the panel,
although accepted by the provincial government, have not been fully imple-
mented.” Thanks to the deliberative component in the process, the Scientific Panel
turned out to be anything but an exercise in co-optive politics.
III. CONCLUSION
Our highlighting of modes of successful impact goes against the grain of a long
tradition in policy studies that delights in exposing failure. Of course, it is not
hard to identify limits and failures when it comes to mini-publics; this is hardly
surprising given their novelty and the challenge they often present to political power
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constituted in more conventional terms. Sometimes the mini-publics’deliberations
pass almost unnoticed, getting little attention from the press, the public, or the
politicians. In one case, presenters at a deliberative poll on UK health policy could
not even recall the event at all a couple of years later.85 Even when the events get a
fair amount of publicity at the time, they are often soon enough swamped by other
stories. The French Conférence de Citoyens sur les Organismes Génétiquement
Modifies was held in June 1998, when media attention was fixed on the soccer
World Cup competition which France was hosting and went on to win. Similarly
with the October 1999 Deliberative Poll held a week before the referendum on
whether Australia should become a republic: the poll showed a massive shift
in favor of a republic; it had excellent media coverage (it was sponsored and
reported heavily by a major national newspaper, and it was broadcast live on
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation television network and featured on the
popular 60 Minutes television program); and opinion polls early the next week
showed significant movement in favor of the republic, with the heavily reported
results of the Deliberative Poll being, at least on Fishkin’s account, the only plau-
sible cause.86 But by week’s end, when voting actually took place, that effect
had worn off and the referendum lost decisively.
Yet stories of failure, however entertaining (and occasionally instructive), ought
not be enough to satisfy those interested in building a more deliberative democracy.
There are good reasons in normative democratic theory to accord ordinary citizens
a more central place in political processes, and mini-publics provide one such way
that overcomes the problem of size that has so plagued participatory theories more
generally.87 As we have seen, there are cases in practice where this has been done
to good effect. Innovative mini-publics genuinely have, from time to time, had
major impacts on macro-politics. The kinds of effects are varied. The most readily
conceptualized—direct influence on the content of policy—is just one such effect.
Occasionally it can be observed, in terms of determining the referendum question
on electoral reform in British Columbia, influencing Danish policy on irradiated
food, or emboldening Texas utilities to invest more heavily in renewable energy
even if at slightly higher prices to consumers. However, in complex political
processes, we should not be surprised when it proves hard to trace the direct impact
of any particular input, be it a discursive design, a piece of policy analysis, the pres-
sure exerted by a lobby group, the campaign of a social movement, or the content
of a party manifesto. Sometimes the impacts on policy were of a negative sort, a
matter of deliberative market testing leading to veto of a proposal—slowing the
introduction of GM crops in Britain and forcing Lower Manhattan urban planners
back to the drawing board. Other times the impacts were in terms of legitimation—
providing a way out of a tricky situation that enabled the Leicestershire Health
Authority to dedicate one of its three hospitals to “planned care” without alienat-
ing key stakeholders.
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We have, then, mapped and illustrated some democratic possibilities. What
we have not done is generate and test systematic explanations concerning why
sometimes impact is achieved, and why sometimes it is not. We conclude not so
much with the ordinary plea for research on this question as with a plea for more
mini-publics—both in order to populate the social scientists’ sample and, more
importantly, in order to improve democratic practice.
NOTES
1. Recalling similar concerns with “participatory democracy” two decades before,
see, e.g., Robert A. Dahl, After the Revolution? (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1970), 67-68.
2. See, respectively, Joseph M. Bessette, The Mild Voice of Reason: Deliberative
Democracy and American National Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1994); Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, trans. William Rehg (Oxford:
Polity, 1996); John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000); John S. Dryzek, “Legitimacy and Economy in Deliberative
Democracy,” Political Theory 29, no. 6 (2001): 651-69; Pippa Norris, Digital Divide
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Benjamin I. Page, Who Deliberates?
Mass Media in Modern Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); and
Robert E. Goodin, Reflective Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
3. Graham Smith, Beyond the Ballot: 57 Democratic Innovations from around the World
(London: POWER Inquiry, 2005), http://www.powerinquiry.org/publications/index.php
(accessed July 1, 2005).
4. Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1989), 342; and cf. Dahl, After the Revolution? 149-53.
5. Just as Ian Budge, The New Challenge of Direct Democracy (Oxford: Polity,
1996), ch. 7, envisages direct-democratic mechanisms complementing representative
democracy.
6. John Burnheim, Is Democracy Possible? (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1985).
7. On a related but slightly different distinction between micro and macro theories
of deliberative democracy, see Carolyn M. Hendriks, “Deliberate Integration: Reconciling
Civil Society’s Dual Role in Deliberative Democracy,” Political Studies (forthcoming).
For Hendriks, micro theories emphasize the conditions of deliberation without attending
closely to broader political structures—and so are not necessarily linked to micro designs
of the sort we focus on here. Her “macro” theories are those that emphasize the interplay
of discourses in public spheres, and its relation to collective decision.
8. Smith, Beyond the Ballot.
9. Arthur Lupia and John G. Matsuaka, “Direct Democracy: New Approaches to Old
Questions,” Annual Review of Political Science 7 (2004): 463-82.
10. Michael Saward, “The Representative Claim” (paper presented to the Workshop
on Political Representation at the Joint Sessions of the European Consortium for Political
Research, Edinburgh, March-April 2003), http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointses-
sions/paperarchive/edinburgh/ws14/Saward.pdf (accessed October 13, 2005); and Jane J.
Mansbridge, “Rethinking Representation,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 4
(2003): 515-28.
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11. For a comparison that suggests this generalization does not always hold, see
Carolyn Hendriks, John S. Dryzek, and Christian Hunold, “Turning Up The Heat:
Partisanship in Political Deliberation” (Australian National University, Canberra, 2005).
12. Archon Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres: Eight Institutional Choices and Their
Consequences,” Journal of Political Philosophy 11, no. 3 (2003): 338-67.
13. Gianpaolo Baiocchi, “Participation, Activism and Politics: The Porto Alegre
Experiment and Deliberative Democratic Theory,” Politics & Society 29, no. 1 (2001): 43-72.
14. Some 8.4 percent of the adult population of Porto Alegre report having partici-
pated in Assemblies at some point over the previous five years. Ibid., n. 12.
15. Archon Fung, “Deliberative Democracy, Chicago Style: Grass-roots Governance
in Policing and Public Education,” Politics & Society 29, no. 1 (2001): 73-104; and
Archon Fung, Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004). In the companion case Fung discusses—Chicago
community schooling—lay members of the local school councils were actually elected.
16. When the Oregon Basic Health Care Act foresaw “difficult and controversial
choices” being required concerning “the categories of medical conditions and treatments
that would be covered by public health insurance,” it enjoined the Health Services
Commission to make that determination “based on values established in a community
participatory process.” As part of that process, some 46 community meetings involving
1,003 residents throughout the state were held to “build consensus on the values to be
used to guide health service allocation decisions.” Those meetings were, by all accounts,
exemplary in their deliberative quality. But “meetings were voluntary and little effort
seems to have been expended to recruit from disadvantaged communities”; and in con-
sequence participation was “skewed... toward a narrow band of professionals and citi-
zens of high socioeconomic status” (Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres,” 357). Many of
the participants were actually health care professionals.
17. Bessette, The Mild Voice of Reason; and John Uhr, Deliberative Democracy in
Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
18. A more complete catalogue can be found in John Gastil and Peter Levine, eds.,
The Deliberative Democracy Handbook: Strategies for Effective Civic Engagement in
the Twenty-first Century (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005).
19. For details, see Jefferson Center, “Jefferson Center: Originator of the Citizens
Jury Process,” http://www.jefferson-center.org (accessed July 11, 2005); Anna Coote and
Jo Lenaghan, Citizens’ Juries: Theory into Practice (London: Institute for Public Policy
Research, 1997); and Jo Lenaghan, Bill New, and Elizabeth Mitchell, “Setting Priorities:
Is There a Role for Citizens’ Juries?” British Medical Journal 312, no. 7046 (1996):
1591-4.
20. Gloria Galloway, “Ontario Asks Citizen Juries for Advice on Budget,” (Toronto)
Globe & Mail, January 8, 2004, http://www.oacas.org/Whatsnew/newsstories/04/jan/
8advice.pdf (accessed August 2 2005).
21. For details, see “Planungszelle & Bürgergutachten,” http://www.planungszelle.de
(accessed July 11, 2005); and Peter C. Dienel, “Planning Cells and Citizens’ Juries:
Foundations of Political Engineering of the Future,” http://www.planet-thanet.fsnet.co.uk/
groups/wdd/99_planning_cells.htm (accessed July 11, 2005).
22. For details, see Simon Joss and John Durand, eds., Public Participation in Science:
The Role of Consensus Conferences in Europe (London: Science Museum, 1995); and
Richard E. Sclove, “Town Meetings on Technology: Consensus Conferences,” http://
www.loka.org/pubs/techrev.htm (accessed July 10, 2005).
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23. “21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003,” 15 USC
7501, sec. 2 (b)(10), http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_
cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ153.108 (accessed August 5, 2005). In the version of
the bill that originally passed the House, Consensus Conferences alone were specified,
but that was amended in the Senate to specify instead “mechanisms such as citizens’ pan-
els, consensus conferences, and educational events, as appropriate.”
24. For details, see http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/docs/summary/ (accessed July 10,
2005); James S. Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic
Reform (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991); and James S. Fishkin, The
Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy, rev. ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1997).
25. Bruce Ackerman and James S. Fishkin, Deliberation Day (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 2004).
26. For details, see AmericaSpeaks, “Our Services: 21st Century Town Meetings,”
http://www.americaspeaks.org/services/town_meetings/index.htm (accessed July 10, 2005).
27. For details, see National Issues Forums, “About NIF Forums,” http://www.nifi
.org/forums/about.aspx (accessed July 10, 2005).
28. Fishkin, Voice of the People, 177-203.
29. James S. Fishkin, Robert C. Luskin, and Henry E. Brady, “Inform Public Opinion
about Foreign Policy: The Uses of Deliberative Polling,” Brookings Review 21, no. 3
(2003): 16-19.
30. For details, see GM Nation, “GM Nation? The Public Debate,” http://www.gmnation
.org.uk (accessed July 10, 2005).
31. The 2003 statute discussed in n. 23, above, that includes Consensus Conferences
as part of U.S. policy making on nanotechnology is a clear signal of movement in that
direction, though there is no guarantee of formal incorporation.
32. See Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, “Improving Democracy in B.C.,”
http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public (accessed July 13, 2005). For further academic
discussion, see John Ferejohn, “The Citizens’ Assembly Model” (paper presented to
Social & Political Theory Workshop, Australian National University, Canberra, July
2005), http://socpol.anu.edu.au/citizensassemblydraft.rtf (accessed August 2, 2005).
33. To pass, the proposal had to win 60 percent of the valid votes in 60 percent of the
electoral districts; the Assembly’s proposals passed the second test but failed the first,
winning only 57.69 percent of total votes. See Elections BC, “Final Referendum Results:
Referendum on Electoral Reform—May 17, 2005,” http://www.elections.bc.ca/elec-
tions/ge2005/fnalrefresults.htm (accessed July 13, 2005).
34. Sclove, “Town Meetings on Technology.”
35. Carolyn M. Hendriks, “Public Deliberation and Interest Organisations” (PhD
diss., Australian National University, Canberra, 2005), ch. 4.
36. Fishkin, Luskin, and Brady, “Inform Public Opinion about Foreign Policy,” 19.
37. James S. Fishkin, “Consulting the Public through Deliberative Polling,” Journal
of Policy Analysis and Management 22, no. 1 (2003): 128-33 at 128; see similarly
Fishkin, Voice of the People, 163, 173.
38. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics, 342.
39. R. L. Lehr, W. Guild, D. L. Thomas, and B. G. Swezey, Listening to Customers:
How Deliberative Polling Helped Build 1000 MW of New Renewable Energy Projects in
Texas, Technical Report NREL/TP-620-33177 (Golden, Colo.: National Renewable
Energy Laboratory, 2003), 9.
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40. Ibid.
41. Fishkin, “Consulting the Public through Deliberative Polling,” 132.
42. Quoted in Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres,” 349.
43. Fishkin, “Consulting the Public through Deliberative Polling,” 131.
44. Fishkin, Luskin, and Brady, “Inform Public Opinion about Foreign Policy,” 19.
45. “By giving substantial coverage to [mini-publics], the media could stimulate a
broader debate about what information and knowledge people need to make informed
pronouncements about... policy,” say Fishkin, Luskin, and Brady, “Inform Public
Opinion about Foreign Policy,” 19.
46. A Deliberative Poll, as Fishkin puts it,
has a recommending force: these are the conclusions citizens would come to, were
they better informed on the issues and had the opportunity and motivation to
examine those issues seriously.... If such a poll were broadcast before an elec-
tion or a referendum, it could dramatically affect the outcome. (Fishkin, Voice of
the People, 163)
47. Fishkin, “Consulting the Public through Deliberative Polling,” 131.
48. Hendriks, “Public Deliberation and Interest Organisations,” ch 5.
49. Ibid, 117-18.
50. Sclove, “Town Meetings on Technology.”
51. Goodin, Reflective Democracy, ch. 8
52. For details on the event, see Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York,
Listening to the City: Report of the Proceedings (New York: Civic Alliance, 2002),
http://www.listeningtothecity.org (accessed July 12, 2005).
53. Carolyn Lukensmeyer, “President of AmericaSpeaks,” quoted in Susan Rosegrant,
“Listening to the City”: Rebuilding at New York’s World Trade Center Site, Kennedy
School of Government Case Program, Case Reference o. 1687 -0 (Cambridge, Mass.:
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2003), 20.
54. Civic Alliance, Listening to the City, 11.
55. Rosegrant, “Listening to the City,” 20.
56. Tom Horlick-Jones, John Walls, Gene Rowe, Nick Pidgeon, Woulter Poortinga, and
Tim O’Riordan, A Deliberative Future? An Independent Evaluation of the GM Nation?
Public Debate about the Possible Commercialisation of Transgenic Crops in Britain, 2003
(Norwich, UK: Understanding Risk Programme, University of East Anglia, 2004), 8, http://
www.uea.ac.uk/env/pur/gm_future_top_copy_12_feb_04.pdf (accessed July 10, 2005).
57. Richard Heller, GM Nation? The Findings of the Public Debate (London: GM Public
Debate Steering Board, 2004), 6-7, http://www.gmnation.org.uk/ut_09/ut_9_6.htm (accessed
July 11, 2005).
58. As the report summarizes the “key message” in continuous prose,
Most people wanted to delay the commercialisation of the GM crops to allow for
more debate and research, and case-by-case testing of individual crops, followed
by strict policing. People wanted proof that GM crops would be safe for human
health and the environment and many wanted additional proof that GM crops
would produce some benefit for the consumer. (Heller, GM Nation? 42, para. 192)
59. UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, The GM Dialogue:
Government Response (London: DEFRA, 2004), 12, 13, paras 4.3, 4.9, http://www.defra
.gov.uk/environment/gm/debate/pdf/gmdialogue-response.pdf (accessed July 11, 1005).
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60. Ibid., 11, paras. 3.2-3.5.
61. Ibid., 13, para. 4.9.
62. Ibid., 3, para. 1.
63. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics, 342.
64. John Parkinson, “Why Deliberate? The Encounter between Deliberation and New
Public Managers,” Public Administration 82, no. 4 (2004): 377-95 at 384.
65. John Parkinson, “Hearing Voices: Negotiating Representation Claims in Public
Deliberation,” British Journal of Politics & International Relations 6, no. 3 (2004): 370-88
at 374.
66. Quoted in Parkinson, “Why Deliberate?” 386.
67. Parkinson, “Hearing Voices”; and Mark B. Brown, “Citizen Panels and the Concept
of Representation,” Journal of Political Philosophy 14 (June 2006).
68. Ferejohn, “The Citizens’ Assembly Model.”
69. Archon Fung, “Deliberation before the Revolution: Toward an Ethics of Deliberative
Democracy in an Unjust World,” Political Theory 33, no. 2 (2005): 397-419.
70. Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres,” 349-50, 352; and Archon Fung and Erik Olin
Wright, “Thinking about Empowered Participatory Governance,” in Deepening Democracy:
Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, ed. Archon Fung and
Erik Olin Wright (London: Verso, 2003), 30.
71. Robert C. Luskin, James S. Fishkin, and Roger Jowell, “Considered Opinions:
Deliberative Polling in Britain,” British Journal of Political Science 32, no. 3 (2002):
455-87.
72. Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres,” 358; Lawrence Jacobs, Theodore Marmor,
and Jonathan Oberlander, “The Oregon Plan and the Political Paradox of Rationing,”
Journal of Health Policy, Politics & Law 24, no. 2 (1999): 161-80.
73. M. Stephen Weatherford and Lorraine M. McDonnell, “Deliberation with a
Purpose: Reconnecting Schools and Communities,” in Can the People Decide? Theory
and Empirical Research on Democratic Deliberation, ed. Shawn W. Rosenberg (forth-
coming), 5.
74. Ibid., 19-20.
75. Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres,” 349-50; and Fung and Wright, “Thinking
about Empowered Participatory Governance,” 29-30.
76. Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres,” 360.
77. Ibid., 359.
78. Fung, “Deliberative Democracy, Chicago Style,” 81.
79. Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres,” 360.
80. See the U.S. statute referred to in n. 23, above.
81. Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grassroots (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1949); and Michael Saward, Co-optive Politics and State Legitimacy (Aldershot,
UK: Dartmouth, 1992).
82. Avoiding this is the unique virtue of the Deliberative Poll, which merely reports
shifts in opinion on the same questions among the group after the event; that advantage
comes at the cost that the citizen participants cannot craft solutions or proposals, only
choose from the questionnaire options set in advance.
83. Hendriks, Public Deliberation and Interest Organisations.
84. Douglas Torgerson, “Democracy through Policy Discourse,” in Deliberative
Policy Analysis, ed. Maarten Hajer and Hendrik Wagenaar (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 113-38 at 129-31.
85. John Parkinson, Deliberating in the Real World: Problems of Legitimacy in
Deliberative Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
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86. Fishkin, “Consulting the Public through Deliberative Polling,” 131.
87. Lyn Carson and Brian Martin, Random Selection in Politics (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger, 1999).
Robert Goodin (goodinb@coombs.anu.edu.au) is Distinguished Professor of
Philosophy and Social & Political Theory in the Research School of Social
Sciences, Australian National University. He is founding editor of the Journal of
Political Philosophy, general editor of the ten-volume series of Oxford Handbooks
of Political Science, and author, most recently, of Reflective Democracy (2003).
John Dryzek (jdryzek@coombs.anu.edu.au) is in the Research School of Social
Sciences, Australian National University. Recent books include Deliberative
Democracy and Beyond (2000), Post-Communist Democratization (coauthor,
2002), Green States and Social Movements (coauthor, 2003), The Politics of the
Earth (2nd ed., 2005), and Deliberative Global Politics (2006).
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