Scaling up deliberation: testing the potential of mini-publics to enhance the deliberative capacity of citizens

Abstract

This paper tests the possibility of embedding the benefits of minipublic deliberationwithin a wider voting public. We test whether a statement such as those derived from a Citizens’Initiative Review (CIR) can influence voters who did not participate in the pre-referendumminipublic deliberation. This experiment was implemented in advance of the 2018 Irish referendumon blasphemy, one of a series of social-moral referendums following the recommendations of adeliberative assembly. This is the first application of a CIR-style voting aid in a real worldminipublic and referendum outside of the US and also the first application to what is principally amoral question. We found that survey respondents exposed to information about the minipublicand its findings significantly increased their policy knowledge. Further, exposing respondents tominipublic statements in favour and against the policy measure increased their empathy for theother side of the policy debate.