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Clodagh Harris, David M. Farrell,a
nd Jane Suiter
12 Mixed-member deliberative forums:
Citizens’assemblies bringing together
elected officials and citizens
Abstract:Rarer thans
tandard citizens’assemblies,m
ixed deliberative forums that in-
clude both randomlyselected citizens and elected political representativesare having
an emerging impact on our understanding of deliberative democracy and how deliber-
ative democratic innovations can contribute to the wider deliberative system. This
chapter presents adefinition and aconcise overviewand analysis of these mixed de-
liberative forums with referencetothe cases that have been established to date. Draw-
ing from the literatureon“democratic coupling”,itexplores their possible strengths
and shortcomings, finding that the inclusion of politicianscan enhance the diversity
of opinion, add epistemic value and increase thevisibility and impactofthe process
and its recommendations. However,italso notes,thatthese benefitsrisk being under-
mined by the potential for elite domination of the discussions and decisions. It con-
cludes with adiscussion of their possible future use within the wider deliberative sys-
tem.
Keywords: elected representatives, mixed memberforum, citizens’assembly, domina-
tion, impact
12.1 Introduction
The onsetofthe “deliberative wave”(OECD2020) over the past decade has seen adra-
matic rise in the number of deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) across OECD countries
(and more widely); it has also seen theemergence of hybrids of the existing types of
DMPs, to such an extent that the lines between (what had been seen as) different
forms of DMPs have become blurred (Curato et al. 2021). Aprominent form of hybrid-
ization has involved including politicians (elected officials) as members, sitting side by
side with “regular citizens”(non-elected residentsand/orcitizens). These hybrid fo-
rums are used less frequentlythan the standard citizens’assemblies (CAs) but have
led to political and constitutional reform as well as increased understanding of how
deliberative democratic innovations can contributetothe wider political system. To
date, the best-known exampleofamixed-member mini-public was Ireland’sConven-
tion on the Constitution (2012 –2014). Others have emerged more recentlyinBelgium
Clodagh Harris: University College Cork, Ireland; David M. Farrell: University College Dublin, Ireland; Jane
Suiter: Dublin City University,Ireland.
Open Access. ©2023 the author(s),published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110758269-014
and Finland, and again in Ireland, providingi
mportant insights into their deliberative
quality,i
mpact,a
nd institutionalism.
This chapter presents ac
oncise overviewa
nd analysis of these mixed deliberative
forums. Drawing from literaturei
nt
he field, it offers ad
efinition of what is meant by a
mixed-member deliberative forum, and outlinesw
here and how they have been estab-
lished to date. With reference to the literature on “democratic coupling”,i
te
xplores the
potential strengths and shortcomingso
ft
hese hybridC
As,a
nd concludes with ad
iscus-
sion of their possible future use.
12.2 What arem
ixed-member deliberative forums?
Different terms have been used to describe processes in which randomlys
elected citi-
zens deliberate directlywith elected officials in aparticular forum. In their work on
the Irish Convention on the Constitution, Arnold et al. (2019) talk of a “hybrid sortition
chamber”.Others refer to them as “mixed”.For instance, Flinders et al. (2016) differ-
entiate between pure and mixed assemblies wherepure assemblies consistsolelyof
citizens and mixed assemblies include citizens and politicians. Strandberg et al.
(2021a) and Va ndamme et al. (2019) speak of “mixed deliberation”and a “mixed cham-
ber”respectively.Yet,these terms are not sufficientlycomprehensive.Mixed delibera-
tion could be interpreted broadlytoinclude processes that involvethe wider citizenry,
elected officials, stakeholders,and others in system wide deliberations as opposed to
deliberations between citizens and politicians in adiscretedeliberative forum as is
the objective of this chapter.Intheir most recent work on the Irish Convention, Farrell
et al. (2020) identify it as amixed-member deliberative forum (MMDF). This is the term
employed here as it captures both the forum’smembership and process.
In MMDFsthe privatecitizens are randomlyselected to fill keydemographic de-
scriptors such as age, gender,educational attainment, employment status and so
forth (in some instances the stratification might alsoinclude attitudinal quotas). The
elected officials usuallyput themselvesforward or are nominated by their political
party;party representation in the forum often reflects their strength within the parlia-
ment,ormunicipal council. Citizens tend to outnumberelected officials in these proc-
esses.¹
To date, there is no definitivetemplatefor MMDFs. Similarly, research on their de-
sign, deliberative quality,and impact is limited though –as we shall see –growing.
Their membership maydifferentiatethem from “regular”mini-publics, but they
share their deliberative virtues of inclusion, justification, and reflection (Dryzek
2016), as well as operational features such as invited expertise, professional facilitation
and decision making.
Clearly, elected officials are citizens too, but their membership of the deliberative forum recognizes
their particular status as elected(professional) politicians.
156Clodagh Harris, David M. Farrell, and Jane Suiter
12.3 Real-world examples of mixed-member
deliberative forums
To date therehaveonlybeen ahandful of real-world examples of MMDFs, some estab-
lished officially(by agovernmentormunicipalauthority), others as academic experi-
ments. In this section we review cases from Ireland, Belgium, the UK, and Finland.
12.3.1 Ireland
Ireland’sConvention on the Constitution (2012–2014)was the first of its kind world-
wide (Arnold et al. 2019). Itsmembership and agenda werethe resultofacompromise
negotiated between the twogoverningparties at the time.Itcomprised 66 citizens, 33
politicians, and an independent chair.The citizenmembers wereselected at random
and stratified across gender,age,socio-economicstatus, and geography.The political
partiesdetermined how their parliamentary members wereselected and the parties’
allocationswereproportionatetotheir representation in parliament.
The Convention was asked to consider eight specific issues: the length of the term
of office of the Irish President; whether to reduce the voting ageto17; areviewofthe
Dáil (lower house of parliament) electoral system; whether to give non-resident Irish
citizens the right to vote in Presidential elections; whether to legalize marriageequal-
ity;areview of an existing clause in the Irish Constitution on the role of women in the
home and encouraginggreater participation of women in public life; increasing the
participation of women in politics; and whether to removethe offence of blasphemy
from the Constitution. It was allowed to propose other topics after the original eight
reports were completed, thereby giving the Convention some limited agenda setting
powers.This was to see the addition of two topics: parliamentary reform, and econom-
ic, social, and cultural rights.
The Convention votedbysecret ballot and it recommendations required onlyama-
jority of the votescast. Itsreports weresent to the Houses of the Oireachtas (Parlia-
ment) for further discussion and the government committed to respond within four
months. The first three reports were all discussedpromptly. This was not the case
for those that followed; they werediscussed much later.Inall, the Convention made
38 recommendations of which it is estimated that 18 would requireareferendum.
Overtime, the majority of the Constitutional Convention’srecommendations have
been accepted and/or are duetobeimplemented. Onlyeight of them wererejected out-
right.Manyofthose accepted are still awaiting referendum, for example loweringthe
voting ageand votesfor those resident outside the state in presidential elections (Har-
ris et al. 2021).
Undoubtedly, the Convention on the Constitution’smost significant impact,was on
22 May2015,when Ireland became the first country in the world to support the intro-
duction of marriageequality by popular vote. This was the first time arecommenda-
12 Mixed-member deliberative forums 157
tion from ad
eliberative mini-public resulted in constitutional change. Ireland’ss
ubse-
quent CAs are also part of its legacy(
Farrell et al. 2021), as are the impact its processes
have had on CAs and MMDFsinternationally.
At the time of writing,the Irish houses of the Oireachtas have just established two
new mini-publics whose processes will run in parallel. One is a “pure”CA comprising a
stratified random selection of residents in Ireland aged 18 and over to address the issue
of biodiversity loss. The other is aMMDFthat has been chargedwith deliberating on
the direct election of aMayor for Dublin and other local governance issues in the
city.Ithas used sortition to recruit city residents aged 18 and over (67members).
The councillor members,ofwhomthere are 12,broadlyreflect their parties’represen-
tation in therespective local authorities, with aslight bias to smaller partiesinorder to
ensure representation of most groups,and have either been self-selected or chosen by
their party.Bothdeliberative forums commenced their work in April 2022.Atthe time
of writing,both are scheduled to finishtheir work by the end of that year.
12.3.2 Finland
There have been anumber of MMDFsinFinland that have occurred primarilyatthe
municipallevel. They have varied in duration, recruitment,and impact. The “Turku de-
bates”citizens’panelwhich took place in 2020 is arguablythe most significantofthe
Finnish cases (Grönlund et al. 2020;Värttö et al. 2021). The panel included 193partici-
pants, consistingofamix of randomlyselected citizens (171)and local councillors (21).
The deliberationsinvolvedacombination of citizen onlysmall groups and small groups
that mixed citizens and councillors.The city’sMayor tasked it with deliberating on fu-
ture traffic arrangements in Turku, to feed into the city’snew “masterplan”.Similar to
the Irish Convention the citizenmembers outnumbered the councillors in the mixed
groups and party representation reflected their representation in the city council.
The COVID-19pandemic resulted in the deliberations taking place online. The panel re-
ceivedaprompt response to their recommendations, which werediscussed in apublic
webinar,attended by the Mayor, afortnight after the panelconcluded its work and
weresubsequentlypresented to the city’surban environment department for consid-
eration.
The Korsholm municipality debated acontentious municipal mergerinFinland in
2018. This MMDF was officiallyrecognized as part of the municipality’sdiscussions on
this topic, but in alimited way. It met ayear in advanceofaconsultative referendum
on the issue. Compared to other MMDFs,the process was short: onlythree separate
two-hour sessions in January and February 2018. The events were open to all who
wereinterested in participating.Sortitionwas not used to recruit participants. Random
selection was, however,used to ensure that amix of citizens and politicians werein-
cluded in each set of facilitated small group discussions. The deliberative discussions
formed part of the municipality’sofficial public hearings of citizens prior to the merger
158 Clodagh Harris, David M. Farrell, and Jane Suiter
negotiations (Strandberg et al. 2021a; Strandberge
ta
l. 2021b). This was not,h
owever
,
the first MMDF to take placei
nK
orsholm.
In November 2016,adifferent MMDF took placeinthe municipality:this was pri-
marilyanacademic exercise with little or no official role. Itstask was to consider the
building of anew schoolcentreand took place after the municipality had made ade-
cision that favoured closing the small schools and replacingthem with asingle larger
one. Strandberg and Berg (2020) note that this forum used an “experimental design”in
which half of the groups had afacilitator to support their deliberations while theother
half had no facilitator or “discussion rules”.There were35participants(21 citizens and
14 politicians) who were recruited through local papers,social media and wordof
mouth (Strandbergand Berg 2020).
12.3.3 Belgium
Belgium has emergedasaworld leader in the institutionalizationofdeliberative and
participatory forums (Niessen and Reuchamps 2019). In 2019,the pioneering Ostbelgien
model was created, embedding CAs in political decision making in the country’sGer-
man-speaking community.More recently, following the increased representation of
the Green party in the 2019 general electionsinboth the Brussels and Walloon regional
parliaments, the governing coalitions committed to the establishment of MMDFsinthe
shape of deliberative committees as part of their policymakingprocesses.
At the time of writing,the Brussels regional parliament and the French-speaking
Parliament in Brussels (Cocof )haveeach established “deliberative committees”that in-
clude both members of Parliament and randomlyselected residents aged 16 and over,
stratified by gender,age,the region’sofficial languages, geographical distribution, and
level of education (Reuchamps 2020). The politician members are those who sit in the
relevant parliamentary standing committee. The ratio of citizen to politician members
is 3to1.
Unlikethe Irish and Finnish cases discussed above, which were once off and “ad
hoc”,the Brussels deliberative committees are institutionalized to the extent that
they are embedded in the region’sdemocratic process and occur regularly. It should
be noted, however,thatthey are not enshrined in the Constitution and could be abol-
ished, if desired, by anew administration.
An indirect petition process open to the public can be used to determine the topic
for deliberation. It requires that agroup of 100 or more residentssupport acall for the
collection of signatures on the Parliament’swebsite: when acall receivesthe support of
1,000 residents it is forwarded to the Bureauofthe Parliament for consideration and
possible selection. Allowing for greater public sayinthe choice of topic enhances the
processes input legitimacy,yet,asReuchamps observes, the relevant parliament “re-
tains theultimateagenda-setting power”(2020).
In terms of thefinal decision-making process, the Brussels’MMDFstake atwin
track approach with different processes for the citizen and politician members. The
12 Mixed-member deliberative forums 159
citizens vote secretlyo
ne
ach proposal while the politician members vote publiclyw
ith
an absolute majority requirement (Vrydagh et al. 2021). In addition thep
oliticiansm
ay
explain each of their votes. This can make the voting session lengthyb
ut does facilitate
justification and reason giving.T
he processi
sc
haired by the chair of thes
tanding com-
mittee (politician) and the deliberations are held in the officialb
uildingso
ft
he region-
al parliament and committee rooms.
Those recommendations that are approved by both groups of members are includ-
ed in ar
eport that is in turn submittedt
ot
he Parliamentary standing committee (of
which the1
5p
arliamentarians are members). This committee must respond by issuing
af
ollow up report,r
espondingt
ot
he status of the recommendations within six
months. This is done in ap
ublic session of the standing committee to which the citizens
are invited (Vrydaghetal. 2021).
At the time of writing,three mixed memberdeliberative committees have been
convened and are ongoing in terms of decision-making and official responses. The
first two involved members from standing committees in the Brussels regional parlia-
ment with the third one linked to the Cocof. The first and second deliberative commit-
tees took place during summer 2021 and deliberated on 5G and homelessness respec-
tively,the former topic chosen by the parliamentarians and the latter stemmingfrom
the indirect public petition process.The deliberation on 5G focused on technical mat-
ters over 5G itself. The framing of the deliberations in this wayled to widespread criti-
cism as well as concern that the topic had been somewhat cynicallyusedbyapolitical
party to endorse its own position.The Cocof deliberative committee that took place in
Autumn 2021 deliberated on resilience, atopic that was favoured by the political lead-
ership.²Another has yettobeconvened owing to legal issues surroundingthe sortition
process. At the time of writing,itisexpected that anew lawpermitting the use of the
national register for the purpose of random selection will be passed in amatter of
months.
12.3.4 The UK
In 2015 agroup of academics and civil society actors established the UK’sDemocracy
Matters project to explore the potential for aUKconstitutional deliberative forum. The
project compared twotypes of deliberative forums: a “pure”,citizens only, assembly
and amixed-member deliberative forum. The research team, funded by the UK’sEco-
nomic Social and Research Council, designed twocity-based mini-publics.Described by
the team as a “democratic experiment”,participants in Sheffield and Southampton
wereinvited to consider devolution and the future of local democracy over the course
of two weekends.The CA included 32 randomlyselected residents while the mixed-
The authors are grateful to Julien Vyrdaghfor sharinghis knowledge of and expertise on the Belgian
deliberative committees.All omissions or errors are our own.
160 Clodagh Harris,D
avidM
.F
arrell, and Jane Suiter
memberd
eliberative forum brought together six local politicianst
od
eliberatew
ith 23
randomlys
elected citizens.
Table1
2.1: Types of MMDFs
Official or Academic One-off or Institutionalized
Ireland’sC
onvention on the Constitution, – Official One-off
UK Democracy Matters, Academic One-off
Korsholm MMDF, Academic One-off
Korsholm MMDF, Official One-off
Brussels’Deliberative Committees, Official Institutionalized
‘Turkudebates”citizens’panel, Official One-off
This brief snapshot of MMDFsthat have taken placetodate reveals both commonalities
and differences. Shared practice has emergedinparticipant recruitment and deliber-
ative process. Most of the cases have employed forms of random selection for the citi-
zen participantsand, the ratio of citizens to elected officials is heavilyweighted in fa-
vour of the former.Similarly,all share,albeit to varyingdegrees,adeliberative process
that employs expert input,mixed small group discussions and facilitation. Their agen-
da-setting powers,duration, and impact of their recommendations differ.The same is
true for their status and function. We ’ve observed thatanMMDF maybeinstitutional-
ized or once-off, ad-hoc events (status), as summarized in Table 12.1.There are also var-
iations in terms of the commissioningagent: there are those MMDFs that can be cate-
gorized as official, initiatedbypolitical institutions (parliaments, councils etc.) with a
specificofficialremit; and then thereare experimental MMDFs, established by academ-
ic and/orcivil society teams who have aresearch and/or advocacy objective.These ex-
perimental projects,while not directlyimpactfulonpolicy,are emerging as an impor-
tant sourceofresearch on deliberation in MMDFs. They have also increased awareness
of this type of deliberative forum amongst officials, policymakers, stakeholders,and
residents.
12.4 The risksand rewardsofmixing politicians
with citizens
Mixing politiciansinwith regular citizens has its positivesand its negatives. In order to
assess this, we can draw upon the concept of “designed coupling”,which is prominent
in debates over deliberative systems. The concept refers to how different sites of delib-
eration are “connected through institutional mechanisms”(Hendriks 2016:44). Clearly,
in our use of this concept,weare alsoreferringtocouplinginadifferent sense, namely
relatingtothe connecting in the one process of two different sets of individuals:pro-
fessional politiciansand regularcitizens. ForMansbridge et al. the coupling, if done
well, should allow each partto“consider reasons and proposals generated in other
12 Mixed-member deliberative forums 161
parts”(2012: 23). The challengei
sa
chievingabalance that prevents the “coupling”be-
comingt
oo tight or too loose. Shouldt
he “coupling”provet
oo tight,t
he MMDF risks
elite domination and the loss of the deliberative democratic system’s“self-corrective
quality”(Mansbridge et al. 2012: 23). It mayalso leadtoco-option (Hendriks 2016;
Setälä 2017)and adistortion of outcomes.
Drawing on the chapter by Caluwaerts and Reuchamps in this Handbook,wenote
in Table 12.2 that elitedomination can manifest itselfatthe input,throughput,and out-
put stages of the process and with varyingdegrees of impactonthe process’sdeliber-
ative quality and outcomes.
Table12.2: The potential for political domination within in MMDFs
Deliberative quality/
outcome
Scope forpolitical influence
Input
Representativeness –Rules relating to the establishment of the forum
Opennessofthe agenda –How the topic(s) is/arechosen
Epistemic completeness –Forum governance (e.g., the procedure determining how experts arechosen
and invited)
–Forum design(e. g., membership recruitment; the proportion of politicians to
citizen members)
–Forum financing and administration
–Destination of the forum’sreport
Throughput
Quality of participation –Design of the deliberation; resources forprofessionalfacilitators
Quality of decision-mak-
ing
–Decision-makingrules
Contextual independence –Forum governance (e.g., arolefor members?)
Output
Public endorsement –Official public response to the output
Politicaluptake –Policy and/or legislative commitments
Policy implementation –Whether implemented in fullorinpart; and how expeditiously
Arguably, thewaysinwhich the politician members can frameand influencethe proc-
ess at the input stageare as applicable to “pure”assemblies as they are to mixed-mem-
ber forums. But in the case of MMDFsthere are significant additional questionsover
whether there can be parity of esteem between thecitizen members and the elected
officials giventhe latter’srole, in certain cases, in the initiation, remit, design, and fi-
nancing of the forum. Furthermore, there are issuesoverdifferences in parity between
the politician members themselves; thoseinthe governing parties maybeinastronger
162 Clodagh Harris, David M. Farrell, and Jane Suiter
position to influencet
he establishment of ap
rocess, its topics,a
nd designt
hant
hoseo
n
the opposition benches. Finally, the decision-making processes used can hinder parity
of esteem. This is most notable in the caseo
ft
he Brussels’MMDFs. The different voting
processes used by politician and citizen members indicate how tightlyt
hat system is
coupled in aw
ay that enshrines political partisanship amongt
he elected officials
and risks significantlyd
istortingt
he outcomes and impacto
fd
eliberations.
But,t
he most significant distinction between traditional or “pure”CAs and MMDFs
is the potential for elite domination in thef
orum’sd
eliberations (throughput influ-
ence). There is the risk that politicians, as experienced and confident deliberators,
mayhavemore voice in the process.They maydominate the discussions, by simplytalk-
ing more than the citizen members,and as resultundulyshape the recommendations
albeit in ways thatare more easilyimplemented.³Additionally, their professional expe-
rience and knowledge of policy processes and policy details potentiallylend greater
weight to their views in the group discussions (Strandbergetal. 2021b). These asymme-
tries of powercould servetolimit the contestatory role of these forums (see Lafont
2017;2020).
In our real-world examples, differences have been observed in levels of politician
and citizen members deliberative quality.Politicians,insome processes have achieved
higher levelsofdeliberative quality than citizens (Flinders et al. 2016;Strandberget
al. 2021b). Yet, Grönlund et al. (2020) observenosuch differenceinthe Turku panels.⁴
Furthermore, when comparingcitizen and politicians in the assemblyand in parlia-
mentarycommittee, Suiter et al. (2021) find that members of the citizens’assembly
demonstrate adeepercognitively complex grasp of the subject matter.
In terms of output influence, therecommendations stemmingfrom MMDFs, to
date, have been advisory as they do not take direct effect. They are referred to parlia-
ment or the relevant parliamentary committee for consideration and response. Some
have also been shelvedwith little or no official response. The fact that the political elite
determine the impact of the recommendations givesthe elected officials within the
MMDF significant influence. Knowing that they have this powercan shape citizen
members’and fellow politician members’interactions with them and skew percep-
tions of the weight of their opinions.
There are measures thatcan be employed to mitigate anumber of these issues.
These mayinclude: ensuring agreater proportion of citizens to politicians; granting
arole for the wider public in setting the agenda; providingaccess to the media to
the proceedingstoensure transparencyand scrutiny;professional facilitation; over-
sight of expert selection; accessible and balanced information briefings; secret voting
This raises an ancillary question, namely, is it the objective of adeliberative forum to develop recom-
mendations that are ready to implement or to propose broader,more considered and possiblymore in-
novative reflections on atopic? The authors are grateful to Julien Vrydagh for this observation
Interestingly, in their studyofa“pure”CA, Suiter et al. (2021) observegreater deliberative quality by
citizens in the CA than in parliament by politicians.
12 Mixed-member deliberative forums 163
at the decision-making stage; selection of an independent chair or convenor; and a
clear destination for the recommendations with as
pecific timeline for ar
esponse.
Yeth
ow effective are they againstp
erceptions of power that mayb
ei
ndirect and
subconscious in their effect?I
st
here the risk that even when politiciansd
on
ot overtly
dominate the discussions in terms of the frequencya
nd length of their contributions,
their contributions maybesubconsciouslyperceivedasmore significant by other mem-
bers (citizens and political representatives) by virtue of their professional position?
Findings on elite domination in such forums are mixed. The UK Democracy Mat-
ters project revealed that the inclusion of politiciansinthe deliberative process nega-
tively impactedonthe quality of thedeliberations, noting “at least in the short term,
inclusion of the politiciansdecreases the quality of deliberation (includingthe amount
of perceiveddomination)”(Flinders et al. 2016:42).Similarly, Strandbergetal. (2021b)
in their research on aMMDFinaFinnish municipality observethatpoliticiansdomi-
nated thedeliberations; however,they note that the dominance maynot necessarily
have been malign, as shown,for example,bythe positive role playedbypoliticians
in answering citizens’queries. In their research on the “Turku debates”citizens’pan-
els, Grönlund et al. (2020) find thatvery few participants said that the deliberations
had been dominated. Harris et al.’s(2020)research on the frequencyofspeech acts
in the Irish Convention on the Constitution observepoliticians’slight over-participation
in the roundtable discussions; however,ananalysis of membersurveys over the course
of the Convention’sdeliberations, reveals that politicians did not dominate the Conven-
tion’sdeliberations generally(Farrelletal. 2020). The authorsspeculate that the length
of the Convention, its scope, and the higher profile of its politician members mayex-
plain the differing results in the Irish and UK processes.
Interestingly,the Farrell et al. (2020) studyfinds evidence of a “modest liberal bias”
amongst the politician members of the Convention, which, they argue, could have “a
distinct(and potentiallydetrimental) impact on the process of deliberation”(p.69).
Consequentlythey recommend that politician members, likethe citizenmembers,
should be selected randomly “to avoid therisk of ‘entryism’by politicians of acertain
ideological hue”(Farrell et al. 2020:69). Additionallytheycall for caution in theselec-
tion of topics ascribed to MMDF,suggesting those topics in which politicians mayhavea
vested interest (such as electoral or political reform) should be avoided.
In terms of possible benefits, the mixing of politicians with regular citizens can be
impactfulinfour ways.Firstly, the inclusion of elected representativesdirectlyinthe
deliberations can ensure visibility for the recommendations. Politicians from across
the party system mayact as champions for the recommendations in parliament and
the government(in thecaseofthose whoare members of governing parties) and in-
crease the possibility of “uptake”(see Farrell et al. 2021). Secondly, it mayincrease pol-
iticians’and the political establishment’strust and confidenceindeliberative process-
es. By havingthem on the “inside”,any fears or concerns they mayhavearound citizen
competence and citizen capacity as well as the possible manipulation of such processes
could be assuaged and leadtogreater use of deliberative forums or indeed their insti-
tutionalization.
164 Clodagh Harris, David M. Farrell, and Jane Suiter
Thirdly, includingp
oliticians mayl
endg
reater epistemic value to the process as
they allow for learning by bringingd
ifferent perspectivesa
nd livede
xperiences to
bear on the giventopic (see Vandamme et al. 2019). Owen and Smith, argue “ademo-
graphicallydiverse group is epistemicallyimportant for collective knowledge”(2019:
293). This is true of “pure”assemblies but also has abearing on mixed-member proc-
esses, as politiciansfrom different political perspectivesmay bring different ideological
positionsonagiventopic to the fore. They alsohavegreater experience and expertise
in the policy arena and mayincrease the success of apolicy by pre-empting concerns,
unintended consequences, implementation challenges, and so forth. It is noteworthy,
however,thatthe research to date on the epistemic value of including politicians pro-
duces mixed findings. Research on the Irish Convention on the Constitution finds that
politicianswereanimportant sourceofinformation on technical issues for some of the
citizen members (Harris et al. 2021). Interestingly,Grönlund et al. (2020) do not observe
differences in knowledge gains between citizenonlyand mixed-member deliberations.
They note that “the presenceofpoliticianshad no effect on knowledge”(p.10). Deter-
mining the epistemic impact,ifany,ofincludingpoliticiansasmembers of adeliber-
ative forum vis-à-vistheir possible impact as “expertsand/orstakeholders”requires
furtherresearch.
Finally, MMDFshavethe potential to increase trust in politics, politicians, political
institutions, and thewider policymaking and legislativeprocess(see Va ndamme et
al. 2019). Research shows thatcitizen members learn more about the policy under dis-
cussion politics and political life (see Strandbergetal. 2021b; Grönlund et al. 2020,Suit-
er,Farrell and Harris 2016). They can also contributetocitizens’sense of external effi-
cacy (Setälä 2017)asthey give them an opportunity to engagedirectlywith
policymakers –apoint that emergedinresearch on the Turku debates panelwhere
councillors “felt they were able to hear thosecitizens whodonot usuallyvoice their
concerns in local politics”(Grönlund et al. 2020:13). This was not the case in theUK,
however,wherenodifferences in efficacy (internal and external) were observed be-
tween the twoassemblytypes.
Research has also shown that citizens’perceptions of politicians’participation in
the process grew more positive over time (Farrell et al. 2020;Flinders et al. 2016).
Yetwhat of politicians’perspectives? ForKoskimaa and Rapeli (2020), there is adearth
of research on policymakers’views on deliberative processesgenerally. Examining Fin-
nish policymakers’attitudes to DMPs, they find they are sceptical towards them, apoint
contradicted by those councillors who participated in theTurku debates panels who
wereinfavour of increased use of DMPs in localpolitics (Grönlund et al. 2020). For
their part, Hendriks and Lees-Marshment’swork on political leaders’attitudes to pub-
lic input and participatory processes in general note that they are valued for “epistemic
and instrumental reasons”(2019:605). Informal interactions with the public are their
preferred form of engagement (Hendriks and Lees-Marshment 2019). The authorssug-
gest “creatingparticipatory spaces wheredecision makers engageinformally and pro-
ductively with citizens would go along waytoaddressingthe [preference of ]contem-
porary political leaders [for] constructive conversations with citizens, not staged
12 Mixed-member deliberative forums 165
participatory performances”(Hendriks and Lees-Marshment 2019:6
11). This is support-
ed by the reactions of Irish politicianst
ot
heir experience of deliberating with regular
citizens in the Convention on the Constitution (Arnold et al. 2019:1
19). The chapter by
Niessen in this Handbookexplores this issue in greater depth.
Our discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of MMDFsb
egst
he question what,
if anything,can be done to achievea“designed coupling”that avoids the risk of elite
domination, reflectingexisting “imbalances of power”(Smith 2009:172). Based on de-
liberative democracy’snormative principlesofinclusive and equal participation and
informed,respectful considered judgement,the potential damagecaused by elite dom-
ination,the distortion of deliberative quality and outcomes maybegreater than the
possible rewards of implementation and impact.This maywell give some pausefor
thought.
12.5 Conclusion
As arelatively new,and still rather rare, form of deliberative democratic innovation,
there is much we have to learn about MMDFs. Research in the field is still emerging,
and, the studiescurrentlyunderway on the Brussels’deliberative committees, in par-
ticular, will add significantlytoour understanding of these forums in duecourse.
What is alreadyapparent is that the inclusion of politiciansindeliberative process-
es can enhance the diversity of opinion, potentiallyadd epistemic value and arguably
increase thevisibility and impact of the process and its recommendations. However,
these benefits risk being underminedbythe potential for elite domination of the dis-
cussionsand decisions. The power asymmetries at the heart of MMDFspose asubstan-
tial obstacle to open, inclusive and equal deliberation. It maybedifficult to champion
them when “pure”CAs are an alternative option. Yetitwould be amistake to dismiss
MMDFsand their potential role in the wider deliberative system.
As the use of new deliberative democratic institutions continues to expand,
MMDFsmay have arole to playatcertain stages in the policy cycle. Forinstance,
they could oversee the implementation of therecommendations comingfrom aCA. Al-
ternatively,they could be instrumental at the agenda setting stage, acting as abridge
between apublic petition process and aCA. Such forums would be most effective if in-
stitutionalised as opposed to being set up as once off ad-hoc bodies.
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