open Democracy News Analysis - dLiberation - Comments

Mikehermann on "Deliberative democracy and efficiency"

Mikehermann — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:39:00 +0000

Private message sent

Jock McClellan on "The purpose of deliberative democracy, conclusion"

Jock McClellan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:19:21 +0000

How can "deliberative democracy" explicitly encourage invention and evaluation of alternative policies for the future? Jared Diamond has documented the dangers of collapse if a civilization is unable to anticipate and address emerging problems. Is it possible that some forms of deliberation are to limited by current assumptions, and lack a long view? How could a long view be embedded in democratic processes? What would be the role of experts? Is there a hybrid form that focuses on deliberation for the future? Any ideas? Thank you.

Jock McClellan

J Clive Matthews on "An attempt at a conclusion"

J Clive Matthews — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 21:08:00 +0000

Another comment, received via email:

Again, could not post this at Ref - my e-mail address turns out to be invalid no matter which finger is used. If this doesn't make it, I'm stumped.

First, thanks for getting back to me. That and your last post at Ref confirmed my view that the EU set-up and politicians on view were no better or worse than our own. And anyway, who could make sense of of a statutory instrument if laid before parliament in the form of an amending regulation! On the sound and fury note, Trimble came across well as expected, and Bonde is just the kind of MEP I'd licence to carry a shotgun. The Greek Cypriot spokestioner brought back memories of the ritual exchanges between whatever Greek or Turk was on duty at Nato meetings I attended down the road. No danger of friendly fire in the Aegean, but they were matey enough downtown. I envied you that bit for sure.

Turning to your closing question, try turning it round. If the public knew more about politics, they would think differently about the subjects at hand. But the public are naturally political from the get go. It all starts as they experience family in the give and take of belonging and sharing with others. Finding out things aren't always to their liking and sooner or later that their behaviour or choices aren't always to others liking. And so on as they grow-up in other relationships and communities into adulthood and assume responsibility for themselves and others, individually and collectively. But if expression of their preferences is limited because they are overruled/under-represented, then they are less likely to grin, bear it and join in. Taxed but having no voice, somewhere down the line the demos turns to demos if not indifference. The customer is mere consumer poll, bought with cash for votes every so often. Hey, you don't even have to vote to get it. And no one appears to listen unless you are in a marginal seat. In line with declining membership, no party polled more than 20% of the whole electorate in the 2006 General Election. Voter numbers have dropped in general elsewhere too. Here, that sub-prime mandate represents a disengaged, disenfranchised electorate and reflects the democratic deficit engineered by the non-elected officials of our 2 main political parties who have made up their minds what is good for us for their own sake rather than the electorate's preferences. The gathering clouds of a proto-federal supranational EU foreshadow an even remoter era of illegitimate irrelevance.

But now, thanks to the SNP and its voters, it cannot be more of the same and everything has to change. The key is recognition that it is the people who are sovereign, not parliaments where their individual and collective sovereignty should be upheld whilst on loan and returned undeminished by successive governments. Subsiduarity subsides if not built on that foundation and we would end up with an emaciated, hollowed-out skeleton of a democracy.

As to corrective action, as yet all we have seen is: no to a General Election, no to a Referendum on the EU Constitution Treaty, no to completing PR, and scant progress on real constitutional reform, devolution and participatory democracy save talking the talk. Will a spatchcock answer to the English Question save the Union? How about a national conversation, a constitutional convention and codified constitution leading to a confederated or federated UK? Or will dithering vision be overtaken by events as others walk the walk?

Of one thing I'm sure: devolution is a process, not an event. We still have one of the most centralized states in Europe. Its time for wholesale devolution of power back to the people from whom it was wrenched - combined with parliamentary reform to see off our elective dictatorship by MPs in faithful representation of our individual and collective sovereignty.

That means returning elected responsibility - embracing authority, accountability, regulation and resources - as close to the point of community use as possible. Localism seems to be today's word for it. Given access to the full tool set, the politician in us all will readily deal with the subjects at hand and be better informed by the experience to appreciate what they would prefer to see going on at national, regional and global levels and hence seek to influence it.
Now, what have you done about that E-Petition to Parliament? And where did that visiting group of MEPs on exchange from eastern Europe get to?

Perhaps OpenDemocracy can play a part in running a dliberative event for MPs before they debate the EU Constitution Treaty. The House of Commons would be an ideal venue for TV coverage so that we could all join in. A Politicians v Public Test the Nation. Mr Bonde could keep order as Speaker. In my dreams. But if you know, could you please tell me where can I access a copy of the Constitution Treaty as amended by the Reform Treaty ? Just in case, you understand.

Thanks again for you coverage of the Tomorrow's Europe event. I got your drift. I enjoyed trying to answer your final question: it boils down to reaping what you sow.

Regards, Keith

Keith.Moss on "An attempt at a conclusion"

Keith.Moss — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 03:17:04 +0000

Thanks for covering dLiberation, it's been fascinating.

jack thurston on "The difficulties of analysis"

jack thurston — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:19:51 +0100

I was involved in the drafting of the surveys and I am pretty certain that the before/after figures released relate to the sample of 362, surveyed on their arrival in Brussels on Friday and before their departure on Sunday. As for the results of the telephone survey of 3500, I'm can't find the data anywhere on the Tomorrow's Europe website. I'm not sure whether it's been released. As contributors to this blog have previously observed, lack of transparency and a proprietorial attitude towards the data is one of the weak points in the Fishkin/Luskin approach. The results of the Deliberative Polling method involve something of a 'black box'. I'm sure all will be made public eventually, though when that will be is anyone's guess.

Anthony Barnett on "The value of Pan-European Citizen Deliberation"

Anthony Barnett — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:35:39 +0100

Chris, I agree that the hollowing out of political parties is a huge problem for representative democracy. But one factor has to be added: the media. The media likes to report on and feed off divisions in parties and when parties abandon their beliefs. It mocks or fails to report it when parties stand by their core beliefs or develop policy in a constructive and thoughtful fashion. Just look at the beating with the John Gummer/Zac Goldsmith report got before the Tory Party was even able to digest it. The emdia is an active political agent and parties with their own internal democratic processes are a threat to the media. I'm putting it crudely but this is something we need to factor in.

cjdegroot on "Introduction to dLiberation"

cjdegroot — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:24:50 +0100

the fundamental problem lies in the core of understanding what TIME is. there is a leading phenomenal that says time is a linear function of spheres ... which makes people and societies run for their time given. nowadays we should be aware of the other function of time : it is a radiant function of collectives ... what are collectives hidden in the society, although popping up in some spheres ? what to think of ... generations, generations of people, generations of the games they play ... which in the line of the TOPIC at dis/charge brings us to the theme of TRUST ... how to build TRUST and housekeep the TRUST through the collective unionited in a country? is a right mechanism to that idea/l onemanonevote or can it be a vehicle that stimulates individuals to participate the voicing of democracy ... diaL up!war:Ds -> www.globalgeniusvoter.com on the s'ilence mode given ... ;-) s'ace

Arthur Lupia on "Fishkin and Luskin respond to Lupia, part 1"

Arthur Lupia — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:54:18 +0100

In my original post, I raised questions about the transparency and effectiveness of deliberative mechanisms such as Deliberative Polls (DP). Jim Fishkin and Professor Luskin have made several claims in their response that deserve additional attention. In sum, deliberation can sometimes do great things, it can sometimes cause huge problems, and it can often have no lasting effect at all. Everyone who has a stake in Tomorrow’s Europe has a right to ask direct questions about what a Deliberative Poll can -- and cannot -- accomplish. 1. Jim and Professor Luskin begin by questioning my motives rather than dealing in facts. It is odd for an advocate of deliberation to defend his claims by questioning others’ motives. It is well known within the deliberative democracy community, that this kind of maneuver does more to impede successful deliberation rather than facilitate open conversation. It is better for participants in an open conversation to focus on the truth values of propositions and factual claims. To deal with the facts of his claim, I have published a number of articles and books focuses on the conditions under which citizens can successfully use various pieces of information to make quality decisions. I show that sometimes citizens can be successful when skeptics and pundits do not expect it. In other cases, citizens are not as successful. This is all very well documented -- as Fishkin knows. I invite you to have a look at my website (http://www.umich.edu/~lupia) and draw your own conclusion. 2. I was invited by the editors of this blog, to offer greater clarity in what deliberative democracy can and cannot do. To this end, the main conclusion of an expansive set of scientific research (almost none of which is by me) is that if you want to propose credible means for helping citizens be more effective, it is important to understand the conditions under which citizens can -- and cannot -- use information effectively. The questions I and others have raised about deliberation come from a disconnect between claims about the effects of deliberation (such as some made by Jim) and heavily researched findings about learning and decision making that emerge from experiments and related scientific work in fields such as psychology, sociology, political science, and the neurosciences. In this case, the science-Fishkin disconnect does not automatically imply that Jim is wrong when he makes claims about DPs, but it does mean that there is a legitimate basis for asking whether he is right. 3. In science, a common way to handle such matters is to facilitate replication. This often entails sharing data from which key claims are made. Later in their response, Fishkin and Luskin admit that they have "been slow about making our data more widely available." Slow is right. Their website refers to dozens of studies costing many millions of dollars including some that are over a decade old. But even as of today, there does not appear to be a single dataset that is publicly available. They then claim that, "We have been the victims of our own success in entrepreneuring a continuing stream of Deliberative Polls, which has retarded our efforts to write up the results for scholarly publication." This response does not hold water in the scientific community. That they have been "too busy" over the last decade to post data on which they seek to base scientifically validated claims is not a credible response. Today, it takes only a few minutes to post a dataset on the web. If Jim is serious about obtaining the legitimacy for DPs that comes from transparency, then he should make his data, particularly from his older and higher profile studies, available without delay.

Arthur Lupia on "Fishkin and Luskin reply to Lupia"

Arthur Lupia — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:32:40 +0100

In my original post, I raised questions about the transparency and effectiveness of deliberative mechanisms such as Deliberative Polls (DP). Jim Fishkin and Professor Luskin have made several claims in their response that deserve additional attention. (This version of my response is extended to parallel the complete entry of Fishkin and Luskin.) In sum, deliberation can sometimes do great things, it can sometimes cause huge problems, and it can often have no lasting effect at all. Everyone who has a stake in Tomorrow’s Europe has a right to ask direct questions about what a Deliberative Poll can -- and cannot -- accomplish. 1. Jim and Professor Luskin begin by suggesting that my motive in questioning Deliberative Polling is that it challenges my past work. It is odd for an advocate of deliberation to defend his claims by questioning others’ motives. It is well known within the deliberative democracy community, that this kind of maneuver does more to impede successful deliberation rather than facilitate open conversation. To deal with the facts of his claim, I have published a number of articles and books focuses on the conditions under which citizens can successfully use various pieces of information to make quality decisions. I show that sometimes citizens can be successful when skeptics and pundits do not expect it. In other cases, citizens are not at successful. This is all very well documented -- as Jim Fishkin knows. I invite you to have a look at my website (http://www.umich.edu/~lupia) and draw your own conclusion. 2. I was invited by the editors of this blog, to offer greater clarity in what deliberative democracy can and cannot do. To this end, the main conclusion of an expansive set of scientific research (almost none of which is by me) is that if you want to propose credible means for helping citizens be more effective, it is important to understand the conditions under which citizens can -- and cannot -- use information effectively. The questions I and others have raised about deliberation come from a disconnect between claims about the effects of deliberation (such as some made by Jim) and heavily researched findings about learning and decision making that emerge from experiments and related scientific work in fields such as psychology, sociology, political science, and the neurosciences. In this case, the science-Fishkin disconnect does not automatically imply that Jim is wrong when he makes claims about DPs, but it does mean that there is a legitimate basis for asking whether he is right. 3. In science, a common way to handle such matters is to facilitate replication. This often entails sharing data from which key claims are made. Later in their response, Fishkin and Luskin admit that they have "been slow about making our data more widely available." Slow is right. Their website refers to dozens of studies costing many millions of dollars including some that are over a decade old. But even as of today, there does not appear to be a single dataset that is publicly available. They then claim that, "We have been the victims of our own success in entrepreneuring a continuing stream of Deliberative Polls, which has retarded our efforts to write up the results for scholarly publication." This response does not hold water in the scientific community. That they have been "too busy" over the last decade to post data on which they seek to base scientifically validated claims is not a credible response. Today, it takes only a few minutes to post a dataset on the web. If Jim is serious about obtaining the legitimacy for DPs that comes from transparency, then he should make his data available without delay. While defending himself, Jim cites instances where he has shared his data. However, most of these people are **his coauthors.** This is not of much help in facilitating independent evaluations. When people want to have a large social impact and claim scientific credibility, transparency typically means making data available for everyone.

Arthur Lupia on "Fishkin and Luskin reply to Lupia"

Arthur Lupia — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:31:20 +0100

Deliberation is the essential component of a deliberative poll. Jim Fishkin suggests that only one person (me), and only a few others, have raised questions about the effects and effectiveness of deliberation and deliberative democracy. It is easy to verify that this claim is specious. All you need is a search engine. Go to one and type in the exact phrase “critique of deliberative democracy.” I did this on google.com this morning. Over 3500 entries emerge. Next type the exact phrase, “critique of deliberation.” Over 4500 entries emerge. Of course, not all people who are genuinely interested in understanding how deliberation works use the exact phrases above. For a more general view, type in the terms “deliberative,” “democracy,” and “critique.” Over 240,000 entries come up. Next, enter “deliberation” AND “critique.” There are over 1.3 million entries. These are big numbers (and they are for English language searches only.) Of course, there are repeated entries in each group (we all know how search engines work) and some of the entries respond to criticisms. But even if a only few hundred or thousand distinct entries remain (with many by leading scholars in multiple scientific, legal, and technical fields), it is clear that a wide range of questions about what deliberation can – and cannot do – are being raised. Fishkin’s claim, therefore, is inconsistent with the facts. People who are serious about wanting the promise of deliberative democracy to be realized should be open to serious questions about what it can accomplish. They should see that it is in their interest to facilitate rigorous, independent, third-party evaluations of the issues raised by numerous experts.

Bugailaberdyfi on ""The greatest threat since WW2" - the EU and the UK media"

Bugailaberdyfi — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:53:25 +0100

It is easy to blame the anti-European press but I think they reflect the popular attitude of the British towards the European Union. A lot of the British don't regard themselves as European but as an 'island race'. But this is false really, our Royal Family is of German-Danish descent while The Duke of Edinburgh is a born and bred Greek. What makes me angry though, is this continued reference to the World War 2.

captbob on "Deliberative Democracy: what and why?"

captbob — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:23:31 +0100

I think Prof. Fishman has put his finger on the critical "attention span" issue that affects any complicated deliberation in a democratic body of any size. The idea of randomly tagging people and handing them responsibility for something creates an interesting dynamic. I wonder how many people "step up" to the challenge (as a percentage of those "tagged")?

mcconeb on "Deliberative Democracy: what and why?"

mcconeb — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:47:36 +0100

Why is it that when Britons discuss the flaws of democracy in the UK there is so little talk about the first-past-the-post system? As in America, this encourages a two-party system rather than a diversity of parties and political representatives for all sections of the community. It encourages the two parties to be as similar to each other as possible in order to "poach" each other's vote, with the Democratic party in America now presenting anti-abortion, pro-gun-lobby candidates and David Cameron's Conservative party becoming almost indistinguishable from New Labour. Could this lack of democracy be part of the problem? As for the discussion about randomly selecting politicians rather than electing them, I must disagree. If a politician didn't want to be a politician, they would not be afraid of losing the next election. That would take away all their motivation to please the electorate. And although your belief that politicians are some monstrous breed totally different from "the man in the street" is touching, aren't you familiar with the phrase "all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? Sure, there are plenty of politicians that I may personally dislike, but replacing them with apathetic, inexperienced and unrepresentative (what makes you think a randomly selected person will represent the wishes of the people anyway?) citizens to be manipulated by the civil service and to disregard the will of the people does not look to me like any kind of improvement. As far as hoodies, thugs and fifth columns, sure, it would be good to have a greater sense of community responsibility. I would support a program of community work (visiting retirement homes or hospitals, cleaning parks and similar jobs) as a mandatory part of the school curriculum alongside PE. Why should children's physical fitness be more important than their community spirit? But as far as the democratic system goes, I haven't yet heard anything that strikes me as an improvement to liberal democracy and proportional representation. We need more of it in the world, not less.

aduncan_1 on "Deliberative Democracy: what and why?"

aduncan_1 — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:21:45 +0100

One of the major issues concerning the poor participation within the democratic process of both the EU and the UK (my home country) comes partly, as highlighted by Professor Fishkin, from the polarisation of opinion regarding issues within society with a diminishing level of modalities for ideas exchange available to the majority of the population. This has been further exacerbated by the “professionalism” of the political sphere, especially within the UK, where presentation, sound-bites and spin have largely taken the place of open discussion and debate on even the most minor of issues within and affecting society at large. Resulting from this, there is a growing sense of extreme apathy and disinterest in the political decision making of the country This is combined with the ever increasing disenfranchisement of the “youth”, basically anyone under the age of 30 in the UK. This process started back in the 1980’s and quickly gathered pace to a point where at present our children and young adults are seen, and largely feared, by the rest of society and the establishment as a type of 5th column, hell bent on the destruction of society. A separate class of almost non-citizens has been created that started as lager louts, teenage pregnancies, hoodies and feral gangs roaming our streets has been created. Where they are not only largely excluded from participation within what is left of our democratic processes but also legislated against to control their movement and participation within the wider spheres of society. As a result of this increasing apathy of the older population and the effective exclusion and criminalisation of the children what little popular participation within the political life of the UK is all but dead. If this dire situation is to be reversed and the once vibrant participation of the citizens of the UK within the political decision making rekindled, then outline for deliberative polling of Professor Fishkin could be an excellent start to this process. The active engagement of randomly selected citizens within this process given the task of input into either local or national decision making based on informed and supported consultation could prove to the last best hope for democracy for the UK and maybe the EU as well.

johnevans7 on "Deliberative Democracy: what and why?"

johnevans7 — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:16:01 +0100

The biggest problem is people who choose to become politicians, do so for the worst possible motive ‘their Egos’ and thus make the worst politicians. I think MP's, like a jury members or lottery winners, should be selected at random from a database of all the electorate. The selection should be a balanced by age, gender and geographic location. No one would sit for more than 5 years, and each year 20% replaced by a new intake. Parliament, excluding that year’s intake, would elect its ministers. Thus no minister could be in office for more than 4 years.