Suchergebnisse

Abstract
In the mass democratic polities of today, the role of citizens remains confined largely to that of voting for members of elected legislatures. Beyond that, there is scant opportunity for 'the public' to participate in any meaningful sense in most of the tasks that make up the policy‐making process. Indeed, influencing that process is typically viewed as the sole prerogative of technocratic experts, organized interests, and elected officials. This presumption is buttressed (and rationalized) by a too‐ready acceptance of the platitude that citizens are generally uninformed, unskilled, and uninterested in the work of democratic self‐government.
We begin with a definition of 'deliberative democracy'.
We then briefly consider its connection to the concept of democracy more generally and argue that the moral authority of the former follows from that of the latter.
From both the developing and the developed worlds, we draw several examples of institutionalized deliberative participation. In some, institutionalization has been sustained; in others, it has not been sustained.
Reflecting on these examples, we consider the 'lessons learned' from these and other cases. We identify costs, difficulties and limitations associated with institutionalizing participatory public deliberation as well as the benefits and advantages thereof.
Finally, we briefly outline a proposal for an Australian experiment that might serve as a learning model for subsequent efforts there and elsewhere to 'institutionalize' participatory citizen deliberation.

Institutionalizing deliberative participation would not replace representative government, but rather would supplement it, enabling democratic governments to reflect and respond better to the values, priorities and aspirations of the people they ostensibly serve.
We offer this practice‐orientated paper as a discussion paper intended to introduce readers to the idea of institutionalizing participatory public deliberation and to generate constructive debate concerning it. We do not presume to provide a rigorous analysis of the concept or of any of the many issues surrounding it.
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

High levels of trust in government are important in addressing complex issues, including the realization of the mainstream sustainability agenda. However, trust in government has been declining for decades across the western world, undermining legitimacy and hampering policy implementation and planning for long-term sustainability. We hypothesize that an important factor in this decline is citizen disappointment with the current types of public participation in governance and that this could be reversed through a change from informing/consulting to a relationship of partnership. Using case studies from Western Australia, the paper investigates whether an intervention targeted at establishing a partnership relationship through mini-public, deliberative, participatory budgeting would improve trust and help the implementation of sustainability. These results show evidence of improvements in trust and provide conceptual and practical tools for government administrations wishing to close the detrimental trust gap that may hamper the implementation of a sustainability agenda.

This paper examines the role of collective identity and collective voice in political life. We argue that persons have an underlying predisposition to use collective dimensions, such as common identities and a public voice, in thinking and expressing themselves politically. This collective orientation, however, can be either fostered or weakened by citizens' political experiences. Although the collective level is an important dimension in contemporary politics, conventional democratic practices do not foster it. Deliberative democracy is suggested as an environment that might allow more ground for citizens to express themselves not only in individual but also in collective terms. We examine this theoretical perspective through a case study of the Australian Citizens' Parliament, in which transcripts are analyzed to determine the extent to which collective identities and common voice surfaced in actual discourse. We analyze the dynamics involved in the advent of collective dimensions in the deliberative process and highlight the factors—deliberation, nature of the discussion, and exceptional opportunity—that potentially facilitated the rise of group identities and common voice. In spite of the strong individualistic character of the Australian cultural identity, we nonetheless found evidence of both collective identity and voice at the Citizens' Parliament, expressed in terms of national, state, and community levels. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of those findings for future research and practice of public deliberation.

This paper examines the role of collective identity and collective voice in political life. We argue that persons have an underlying predisposition to use collective dimensions, such as common identities and a public voice, in thinking and expressing themselves politically. This collective orientation, however, can be either fostered or weakened by citizens' political experiences. Although the collective level is an important dimension in contemporary politics, conventional democratic practices do not foster it. Deliberative democracy is suggested as an environment that might allow more ground for citizens to express themselves not only in individual but also in collective terms. We examine this theoretical perspective through a case study of the Australian Citizens' Parliament, in which transcripts are analyzed to determine the extent to which collective identities and common voice surfaced in actual discourse. We analyze the dynamics involved in the advent of collective dimensions in the deliberative process and highlight the factors—deliberation, nature of the discussion, and exceptional opportunity—that potentially facilitated the rise of group identities and common voice. In spite of the strong individualistic character of the Australian cultural identity, we nonetheless found evidence of both collective identity and voice at the Citizens' Parliament, expressed in terms of national, state, and community levels. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of those findings for future research and practice of public deliberation.

Active citizen participation is increasingly being recognized as essential to effective public policymaking. A key challenge for public administrators is how to effectively engage constituents' diverse viewpoints in sound deliberation that will likely result in coherent, agreed judgments. This paper investigates one such public deliberation process, Australia's first Citizens' Parliament, which brought together 150 randomly sampled Australian citizens charged with the task of formulating concrete policy proposals to be considered by the Federal government. One unexpected outcome of this initiative, especially given Australian ambivalence about nationalism, was the emergence of a shared identity among participants that appeared to bridge cultural and geographical divides. We explore linkages between salient elements of the deliberative process, the emergence of a sense of 'being Australian', and the final agreed list of policy recommendations that indicated an understanding of and commitment to the 'common good'. If the emergence of a shared identity is acknowledged as a key to the development of a coherent public voice, then further examination of these linkages will be critical to the efficacy of future public deliberations. Moreover, given the heterogeneous nature of the Australian electorate and the challenges inherent in the country's federal governance structure, the findings have significant implications for policymakers in similar constituencies, notably the EU and the USA. [Copyright John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.]

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I: Deliberative Design and Innovation -- Introduction -- 1 Origins of the First Citizens' Parliament -- 2 Putting Citizens in Charge: Comparing the Australian Citizens' Parliament and the Australia 2020 Summit -- 3 Choose Me: The Challenges of National Random Selection -- 4 Grafting an Online Parliament onto a Face-to-Face Process -- Part II: Exploring Deliberation -- Introduction -- 5 Listening Carefully to the Citizens' Parliament: A Narrative Account -- 6 Deliberative Design and Storytelling in the Australian Citizens' Parliament -- 7 What Counts as Deliberation? Comparing Participant and Observer Ratings -- 8 Hearing All Sides? Soliciting and Managing Different Viewpoints in Deliberation -- 9 Sit Down and Speak Up: Stability and Change in Group Participation -- Part III: The Flow of Beliefs and Ideas -- Introduction -- 10 Changing Orientations Toward Australian Democracy -- 11 Staying Focused: Tracing the Flow of Ideas from the Online Parliament to Canberra -- 12 Evidence of Peer Influence in the Citizens' Parliament -- Part IV: Facilitation and Organizer Effects -- Introduction -- 13 The Unsung Heroes of a Deliberative Process: Reflections on the Role of Facilitators at the Citizens' Parliament -- 14 Are They Doing What They Are Supposed to Do? Assessing the Facilitating Process of the Australian Citizens' Parliament -- 15 Supporting the Citizen Parliamentarians: Mobilizing Perspectives and Informing Discussion -- 16 Investigation of (and Introspection on) Organizer Bias 218 -- Part V: Impacts and Reflections -- Introduction -- 17 Participant Accounts of Political Transformation -- 18 Becoming Australian: Forging a National Identity Through Deliberation -- 19 Mediated Meta-deliberation: Making Sense of the Australian Citizens' Parliament -- 20 How Not to Introduce Deliberative Democracy: The 2010 Citizens' Assembly on Climate Change Proposal -- Conclusion: Theoretical and Practical Implications of the Citizens' Parliament Experience -- List of Contributors -- Index