Public Deliberations, Discursive Participation and Citizen Engagement: A Review of the Empirical Literature

Many theorists have long extolled the virtues of public deliberation as a crucial component of a responsive and responsible democracy. Building on these theories, in recent years practitioners - from government officials to citizen groups, nonprofits, and foundations - have increasingly devoted time and resources to strengthening citizen engagement through deliberative forums. Although empirical research has lagged behind theory and practice, a body of literature has emerged that tests the presumed individual and collective benefits of public discourse on citizen engagement. We begin our review of this research by defining public deliberation ; we place it in the context of other forms of what we call discursive participation while distinguishing it from other ways in which citizens can voice their individual and collective views on public issues.We then discuss the expectations, drawn from deliberative democratic theory, regarding the benefits (and, for some, pitfalls) assumed to derive from public deliberation. The next section reviews empirical research as it relates to these theoretical expectations.We conclude with recommendations on future directions for research in this area

Invoking public opinion: Policy elites and Social Security

Abstract Do policy elites invoke public opinion? When they do, are their claims based on evidence from public opinion surveys? To learn about the claims that policy elites make, we examined statements the president and members of Congress, experts, and interest group leaders in congressional hearings made about Social Security. To learn about opinion data on Social Security, we conducted a Lexis-Nexis search of the archives of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Our analyses show that policy elites discussing Social Security did invoke public opinion. Contrary to our expectations, however, few of the elite invocations of public opinion cited specific surveys or concrete facts about the distribution of opinion. Although claims directly contradicting survey evidence were relatively rare, only with the rather few specific claims by congressional elites did we find much clear-cut support in the available polling data. Relatively seldom could we find clear-cut support for the elites ’ general claims. Moreover, some of the most frequent claims abou

REPRESENTATIVE IDEOLOGY AND THE VOTE FOR WELFARE REFORM

This article examines the congressional vote for HR3734, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The primary concern is to identify the factors that had a significant influence over the voting decision, paying special attention to representative ideology measured by Americans for Democratic Action and American Conservative Union voting scores. An empirical model is developed and estimated using logistic regression. The model incorporates proxies for representative ideology, constituent ideology, constituent economic interests, and the potential for legislative shirking. The results indicate that representative ideology was an important factor in the vote, but that constituent ideology and interests were also influential. Knowledge of the pattern of voting on the original legislation should prove useful to policymakers as the need for further refinement of the welfare system becomes evident, as it almost surely will. Copyright 2001 by The Policy Studies Organization.