Deliberative Polling as the Gold Standard Jane Mansbridge The Good Society, Volume 19, Number 1, 2010, pp. 55-62 (Article) Published by Penn State University Press For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/gso/summary/v019/19.1.mansbridge.html Access Provided by Stanford University at 07/26/10 5:08PM GMT JAMES S. FISHKIN’S WHEN THE PEOPLE SPEAK Deliberative Polling as the Gold Standard Jane Mansbridge The Deliberative Polls of James Fishkin and Robert Luskin the deliberators with radical left or right alternatives that are represent today the gold standard of attempts to sample what a not within the currently feasible political process. Including considered public opinion might be on issues of political impor- such options is not practical in a context in which the funding tance. 1 Those polls are also beginning to play a role in shaping and frame for Deliberative Polls and their like are provided by public policy, as I believe they ought to do. They are an important governments, the mainstream media, or mainstream foundations. new mechanism through which citizens can affect the laws and But including such alternatives may be a desirable long-run goal. policies that affect them. They provide an opportunity for reflec- At the moment Deliberative Polls do as good a job as any of tion and voice that is both more deliberative and more equal in their alternatives in the quality of the options and materials they practice than most elections. They play an increasingly legiti- provide. mate role, both sociologically and normatively, in the system of Third, the Deliberative Polls engage significant issues and citizen representation. Yet, as Fishkin points out in this new often provide real links to policy-makers, so that participants can book, although Deliberative Polls have a positive effect on their know that their voices will matter. In Papandreou’s PASOK party participants’ subsequent participation in the electoral process, primary in Athens, participants in the Deliberative Poll actually they do not mobilize the citizenry. They sacrifice widespread went into a polling booth and made the candidate selection deci- participation for greater deliberation and political equality. They sion after filling out the Deliberative Poll questionnaire. In the are thus only one tool in a desirable democratic toolbox. Texas Public Utilities Commission case, the relevant official decision-makers were embedded in a process that mandated strong consideration of the poll results. In Zeguo township in The Gold Standard China, the relevant party official committed informally before- Deliberative Polls are the gold standard today in several hand to enacting the decisions arrived at by the Deliberative Poll respects. They are strongest in representativeness, very strong and formally submitted the results to the Local Peoples Congress, on outcome measurement, and equal to any other in balanced which ratified them. Now that the Local Peoples Congresses materials, policy links, and the quality of space for reflection. have become more independent, subsequent Deliberative Poll First, the Deliberative Polls today make a more significant results have been submitted to them and to date they have always attempt to get a representative sample than any other comparable adopted the results. In many other cases, decision-makers have entity. They do about as well as is practically feasible with today’s taken the Poll results seriously, particularly when those results technology. Getting such a high quality sample requires monetary have given politicians cover to make a sensible but politically compensation, travel, hotel rooms, repeated requests, and other unpopular move. 4 support. The process is very expensive. 2 Even Citizens Juries, the Fourth, the Deliberative Polls make a major and very largely British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly, and the consensus confer- successful attempt to produce a safe space for discussion within ences in Europe, deliberative venues all its representative sample. This safe based initially on random or represen- space has several features. The Polls tative samples, have a larger—often a The capacity to tap considered provide an unusual opportunity to dis- much larger—self-selected component citizen opinion could also give cuss issues with a representative sample than the Deliberative Polls. public-spirited politicians cover of the non-likeminded in a space pro- Second, the Deliberative Polls make when they want to do the right tected and facilitated by moderators. a major and highly successful attempt thing but find raw public opinion As in other such facilitated deliberative to produce balanced documents and a against them. venues, the moderators damp the heat balanced set of advocates pro and con. of emotions, an admitted loss, but also The materials must be signed off on by encourage those who would not speak the competing sides in a balanced advisory committee. 3 I know up in a hotter environment, a significant gain. In more traditional of no instance in which Deliberative Polls have been attacked public venues such as a town meeting, people will sometimes for providing unbalanced materials. Like the other deliberative not speak up unless they “get mad.” 5 In the Deliberative Polls, venues of which I am aware, Deliberative Polls do not provide the moderators generally coax such people to talk and the safer The Good Society, Volume 19, No. 1, 2010 · Copyright © 2010 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 55 GS 19-1_10.indd 55 6/30/10 11:15:29 AM SYMPOSIUM environment makes it more possible for the conflict averse to create and access the considered deliberations of a representative express their opinions. sample of the citizenry. Deliberative Polls also achieve high Conflict aversion is a serious problem for democracy. The standards in measurement. Attitude data are collected on first distaste for conflict cuts across class and to some degree across contact and those who participate are compared, with the same gender (with the less educated and women somewhat more questions, to a random sample contacted through a standard conflict-averse). 6 That distaste reduces interest in politics and telephone opinion poll, a process that makes possible a test for so affects even electoral participation. It usually depresses representativeness. In a few cases, the Deliberative Poll design even more the forms of participation that require conflictual also includes something close to the full (and expensive) four- face-to-face interaction. In part because of an aversion to cell measurement necessary for a persuasive test of causality: a conflict, citizens rarely have long and serious conversations with measurement of treatment and control groups both before and others with whom they seriously disagree politically. Yet such after the treatment. Finally, Deliberative Polls are large enough so interactions with opposing opinions do take place in Deliberative that their representativeness can be evaluated statistically. Polls. The fear of conflict is reduced not only because of the Because these measurements are well designed and well moderators but also because the opinions voiced are non-binding collected, the outcomes of Deliberative Polls have been impor- and the stakes are therefore low. In Archon Fung’s terms, these tant for scholars interested in participation. A decade ago I con- are not “hot” deliberations. 7 cluded that the study of participatory democracy had declined The moderators in Deliberative Polls also try, often with con- in part because it is so hard to demonstrate empirically, with siderable success, to avoid social pressures to conformity and the appropriate control groups at Time one and Time two, that consensus. This is not an easy matter. Small groups in general participation has any effects on the participating individuals. tend toward consensus, and trained facilitators often believe it is A researcher often needs very large (and therefore expensive) their job to help guide group members toward identifying what samples to capture the expected small and subtle effects. At the they have in common. 8 In Europe, “consensus conferences” time I wrote, no one had been able to make a persuasive argu- make achieving consensus their declared goal. Deliberative ment that political participation had any such effects, because Polls, however, end with the equivalent of a secret ballot, so that the existing measurements were only correlational. Since then the outcome can be aggregative, not consensual. Moderators in John Gastil and his colleagues have shown positive effects all such deliberative bodies need to be actively reminded to keep (and even “dose effects”) of jury duty on voting participation “remainders” alive. 9 in actual elections. Frohlich, Godard, Oppenheimer and Starke The moderators in Deliberative Polls, like those in many such have shown positive effects from simulated worker control in the deliberative venues, try further, and with considerable success, to laboratory. Robert Luskin and James Fishkin have shown posi- include all individuals and bring out all sides of a question. This tive effects of Deliberative Polls on political efficacy, as Carole effort, combined with the balanced materials and experts, proba- Pateman predicted, and possibly even on public spirit, as John bly explains why the participants in Deliberative Polls demonstra- Stuart Mill predicted. 12 bly do not move to extremes, as Cass Sunstein points out happens Luskin, Fishkin, and other researchers