FIDE conference: Citizens Assembly School: April 18-20

George Vamos

I attended the Citizens Assembly School FIDE conference April 18-20. The following is my brief overview:

Deliberative Assemblies have been growing in popularity lately, as any search on the terms deliberative democracy/assembly will show. The conference highlighted the efforts to develop deliberative assemblies, including the wide range of challenges in making them into common practices in the US.

So what are some of the key considerations for putting this process into action?

Government control verse people power: Most presenters (in the US as well as internationally) expected elected officials to prefer to determine the scope of deliberative panels. Perhaps this constraint is the price of official support or even acquiescence, without which deliberative panels are unlikely to succeed. Elected officials face a trade off: They are reluctant to cede power, but one reason they support deliberative panels is to obtain legitimacy for controversial decisions. The more scope and authority they give the deliberation, the greater the legitimacy. This can be quite significant for tough issues, such as medical end of life support (assisted suicide.) Elected officials also want the option to take up or refuse the recommendation of the deliberative panels, though they may be influenced to do so if media coverage is significant. Several states in the US support citizen initiatives, but surprisingly this was not discussed much: Most of the conference attendees wanted to cooperate with elected officials. As some groups advocate for a more active role for efforts based on the initiative process, such as the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab, there is room for improved participation in future efforts.

Iain Walker (https://www.newdemocracy.com.au/) and Art Oleary ( https://www.electoralcommission.ie/) discussed the issues related to getting elected officials to accept citizens assemblies. While initially these officials tend resist deliberative assemblies (they see decision making as being THEIR jobs), there are third rail issues where any decision will antagonize constituents, which they are quite reluctant to do. (Example: Abortion in Ireland, and making tough budgeting decisions in South Australia). Decisions have to be framed as clear choices on substantive issues, otherwise the public does not want to attend the assemblies (normally 2-5% of invitees accept the invitations) or otherwise will show its disapproval (such as the choosing the name Boaty McBoatface in a public poll for a newly launched ocean research ship.) Besides the significance of the deliberation topic, deliberators want ability to directly question experts and officials.

Transparency verse participant safety: Another issue concerning legitimacy is the desire by the public to get transparency into the deliberative process, but without giving up the privacy of deliberation participants, especially on controversial issues. People fear being outed on contentious issues. A possible compromise is to show all the briefings and the voting totals, but not show the participants discussing among themselves.

Another issue concerning legitimacy is the desire by the public to get transparency into the deliberative process, but without giving up the privacy of deliberation participants, especially on controversial issues. People do not want to be outed. A possible compromise is to show all the briefings and the voting totals, but not show the participants discussing among themselves. This trade off can be complicated, as many people suspect process manipulation whenever they do not fully understand the process.

Quality verse cost: There were several discussions concerning the practicalities of deliberative panels. Linn Davis of Healthy Democracy gave the example of the Petaluma fairgrounds deliberation as involving 40 people for 40 hours, at a cost of approximately $400K. When I asked him how much money could be saved by reusing materials, he estimated not more than 20%, since much of the cost was for expert testimony, facilitation, stipends, etc. A major variable here is facilitation. Some presenters described having a facilitator for each group of deliberators, perhaps with some "floating" deliberators at large for the room. Groups of deliberators range from perhaps 6 for open ended questions to perhaps a dozen for more constrained cases, setting a minimum for any deliberative effort. Complex policy design issues are the most difficult. This does not include training efforts required for people not used to the process. On the other hand, training videos may be reusable.

Selected verse general public: The process of selecting participants also requires careful attention: Response rates to invitations range from 1% to 12%, with 2-5% being typical. Discussions with people from an effort in Montrose Colorado indicated that conservative leaning publics are likely to be suspicious of complex sampling strategies and prefer the simplest possible strategies. When politics are highly polarized, panels perform better on non-partisan issues, such as school transportation and the like. People from the Montrose effort also indicated that given that sortition created situations where people wanted to get on panels but were not picked, it is good policy to give such people roles, such work on future deliberations, which would prevent them being discouraged from such future efforts. Perhaps these people could be considered for other roles.