Arthur Lupia

As the academic debate over the merits of deliberative democracy and deliberative polling heats up following Professor Lupia's initial criticisms (and the response of deliberative polling masterminds Professors Fishkin and Luskin - and part 2), Lupia continues to expand on the need for representativeness:

On the Tomorrow's Europe website, the representativeness of the sample is claimed as a legitimating factor. Here is an instance where, ex ante, you can commit to credible measures of "representativeness."

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Arthur Lupia

As the academic debate over the merits of deliberative democracy and deliberative polling heats up following Professor Lupia's initial criticisms (and the response of deliberative polling continues to consider the potential effects:

The Tomorrow's Europe poll first requires a stronger and more clearly stated set of goals than appears on their website. Then, turn those goals into hypotheses that can be evaluated with data that you are able to collect.

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Arthur Lupia

As the academic debate over the merits of deliberative democracy and deliberative polling heats up following Professor Lupia's initial criticisms (and the response of deliberative polling masterminds Professors Fishkin and Luskin - and part 2), Lupia returns to expand on the need for transparency:

The key premise is: procedural transparency fuels legitimacy. There are changes that could be made that would be helpful towards making the Tomorrow's Europe deliberative poll (DP) more transparent in its aims and methods. I would begin by using more precise language about key points.

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Arthur Lupia

As the academic debate over the Tomorrow's Europe deliberative poll begins to take off, Professor Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research presents the first in a four-part series on some of his concerns about the methods and theories behind deliberative polling:

There are many contested and unresolved issues relevant to the effectiveness of deliberative polls (DP) and related deliberative mechanisms. I happen to believe that deliberative ventures such as DPs can have beneficial effects, but only under specific conditions and with rather limited goals in mind.

I am concerned with the basic credibility of a number of the claims made about the Tomorrow's Europe poll on its website.  Read the rest of this post...