Re: When Citizens Deliberate

oniexn — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 03:44:44 GMT

I think most citizens (if not all) knows very well what their state needs simply because they have ears to listen and eyes to see the reality of life and the needs of state. So, the voice of citizens is important in every deliberation.

When Citizens Deliberate

agomberg — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:03:10 GMT

By James S. Fishkin, Stanford University

What are the virtues of democratic citizenship when voters are bombarded by WMD—by which I mean “weapons of mass distraction”—stinging sound bites and campaign ads from the persuasion industry funded by a campaign finance system that seems to be broken? Our political system was born with an ideal of representatives “refining and enlarging the public views” and hence deliberating on the merits regardless of faction or partisanship. But the nexus of polling and campaign ads has taken us on a long journey from Madison to Madison Avenue. Citizens are mostly participants in an “audience democracy” in which they are occasionally moved to cheer for one side or another. Not much is expected of them when they are mostly on the sidelines.

To put this in context: What virtues we expect of democratic citizens depends on what kind of democracy we aspire to achieve. On some theories of democracy, it does not matter if citizens participate, if they are informed about the issues they vote on, if they care about the interests of the community rather than just their personal interests narrowly construed, or if they are willing to listen to the viewpoints of others. On what is the currently dominant democratic theory, the competitive democratic view of theorists like Joseph Schumpeter and more recent followers, all that fundamentally matters is whether the system has procedurally fair elections to decide which team of office holders takes office. Democracy is a “competitive struggle for the people’s vote.” It is not an exercise in collective will formation. On the competitive view, if citizens are misled by false campaigning, or if they mostly get discouraged and stay home, or if they are aroused by passions or interests adverse to the rights of others, it does not fundamentally matter. On the competitive view, the presidential primary process playing out before us is the epitome of competitive democracy. But from the standpoint of deliberative democracy advocates, it leaves much to be desired in terms of levels of citizen information and discussion and in terms of an actual focus on substantive issues of policy.

One of the arguments in support of the competitive view is that citizens are not really capable of much more. A low level of citizen competence, as an empirical matter, justifies low demands on what citizens can be expected to do. Hence an empirical exploration of citizen competence would have real implications for whether a more demanding view of what citizens ought to do is realistic or achievable. But citizens do not act in isolation; democracy requires an institutional context or design. The individual virtue of citizen behavior is inextricably tied to the institutions defining the contexts in which they act.

My colleagues and I are engaged in a research program in which random samples of ordinary citizens are recruited to participate in what I call “Deliberative Polls®” (see http://cdd.stanford.edu) They discuss policy or political questions in depth and arrive at considered judgments, revealed in confidential questionnaires, to provide an input to policy or politics. In the right context, citizens turn out to be highly competent to confront difficult trade-offs. They become measurably more informed, they are open to arguments offered by those with competing perspectives and they even are willing to make modest sacrifices in the public interest. In short, in the right context, random samples of the public are quite capable of behaving a bit more like ideal citizens.

In a series of eight Deliberative Polls in Texas on energy choices, random samples of the public rose greatly in their support for renewable energy and conservation and they were willing to pay slightly more on their electricity bills for it. In a series of decisions based on these results, the Public Utility Commission and the legislature brought Texas from being last among the fifty states in wind power in 1996 when we started, to being first in 2007. People were willing to make at least modest sacrifices in the public interest (pay slightly higher utility bills to provide a public good for the environment.) In Northern Ireland and in Bulgaria, Deliberative Polls showed how mutual understanding and increased tolerance were possible across deep ethnic divisions. The percentages of Protestants and Catholics who were willing to say the other community was “open to reason” or “trustworthy” rose significantly in Northern Ireland. In Bulgaria, in a national Deliberative Poll on the condition of the Roma, a series of policy attitude changes about housing, education and the criminal justice system showed a far greater acceptance of the Roma by the broader community and an embrace of policies that would integrate them far better. We found similar results in an Australian project on policies toward the Aboriginals.

In the most recent Deliberative Poll, What’s Next California? a random sample of registered voters set an agenda for possible initiative propositions to fix the state. Their deliberations helped give birth to the Government Performance and Accountability Act which is now going on the ballot for 2012. Their deliberations show how citizens can become better informed and master the most complex issues of state government if they are given the chance. If the initiative passes it will be the first time in 2,400 years that a random sample has deliberated and set the agenda for a vote approved by the rest of the population. The Athenian Council of 500 was selected randomly and set the agenda for voting in the Assembly just as this Deliberative Poll set the agenda for voting by the electorate in California. The Athenians famously expected more of their citizens in their polis than we do in the modern era. Deliberative democrats are exploring, empirically, whether modern citizens can live up to similar standards.

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Re: When Citizens Deliberate

When Citizens Deliberate