Democratic Deliberation and Impartial Justice

Theories of deliberative democracy maintain that outcomes of democratic deliberation are fairer than outcomes of mere aggregation of preferences. Theorists of impartial justice, especially Rawls and Sen, emphasize the role of deliberative processes for making just decisions. Democratic deliberation seems therefore to provide a model of impartial decision-making applicable in the real world. However, various types of cognitive and affective biases limit individual capacity to see things from others’ perspectives. In this paper, two strategies of enhancing impartiality in real world decision-making are discussed. The first involves decision-making processes which detach decision-makers from their particular interests, whereas the second aims to enhance the quality of democratic deliberation and empathetic reasoning. We conclude that new forms of democratic deliberation may be necessary if we hold on to the aspiration of making decisions which are both democratic (responsive) and impartial

A Functionalist Approach to Democratic Innovations

This article argues that it is important to analyse different democratic innovations in terms of their functions in democratic systems. For example, while citizens’ initiatives have a role in agenda setting, practices of citizen deliberation should help collective will-formation and referendums facilitate collective decision making. The article provides a framework for the analysis of various instruments of direct, deliberative and participatorydemocracy based on their functions, and evaluates five democratic innovations from the perspective of this framework. It is pointed out that, when properly used, even advisory participatory instruments have a potential to improve the functioning of representative decision making. Moreover, the article shows how democratic innovations can functionally complement each other.</p

Connecting deliberative mini-publics to representative decision making

Despite some prominent critics, deliberative democrats tend to be optimistic about the potentialof deliberative mini-publics. However, the problem with current practices is that mini-publics are typicallyused by officials on an ad hoc basis and that their policy impacts remain vague. Mini-publics seemespecially hard to integrate into representative decision making. There are a number of reasons forthis, especially prevailing ideas of representation and accountability as well as the contestatory characterof representative politics. This article argues that deliberative mini-publics should be regarded as onepossible way of improving the epistemic quality of representative decision making and explores differentinstitutional designs through which deliberative mini-publics could be better integrated into representativeinstitutions. The article considers arrangements which institutionalise the use of mini-publics; involverepresentatives in deliberations; motivate public interactions between mini-publics and representatives;and provide opportunities to ex post scrutiny or suspensive veto powers for mini-publics. The articleanalyses prospects and problems of these measures, and considers their applicability in different contexts ofrepresentative politics.</p

Advisory, Collaborative and Scrutinizing Roles of Deliberative Mini-Publics

The normative point of departure in this article is that mini-publics can “complement”representative democracy only if they enhance inclusive processes of mutual justificationamong elected representatives who are responsible for public decisions. This articledistinguishes three different roles of mini-publics in representative decision-making. Minipublicscan be 1) advisory when they provide input for collective will-formation in therepresentative arena, 2) collaborative when they involve elected representatives in thedeliberative process, 3) scrutinizing when they check representative decision-making. Thearticle analyzes strengths and weaknesses of these roles of mini-publics. Advisory minipublicsare particularly vulnerable to “cherry-picking.” While collaborative uses of minipublicsmay facilitate inclusive reason-giving among elected representatives, they entailrisks of representative dominance. Scrutinizing use of mini-publics seem particularlypromising from the normative perspective, but it requires a well-defined institutionalframework. The article concludes that while there are ways to avoid problemsemerging in these different roles, political context is crucial in terms of the deliberativeimpact of mini-publics.</p

Kansalaisaloitejärjestelmä kaipaa lisää läpinäkyvyyttä

Kansalaisaloitejärjestelmä on ollut menestys, mutta sitä kannattaa kehittää edelleen Katsaus kokoaa yhteen tutkimustuloksia vuodesta 2012 käytössä olleesta kansalaisaloitejärjestelmästä ja esittää toimenpiteitä kansalaisaloitteen kehittämiseksi. Järjestelmää arvioidaan käytön, vaikutusten ja vastaanoton näkökulmasta. Järjestelmää voidaan pitää onnistuneena, vaikka aloitteiden hylkääminen on herättänyt epäluottamusta erityisesti aloitteen tekijöiden keskuudessa ja aloitteiden laatu kritiikkiä päätöksentekijöissä.Aloitteiden käsittelyn läpinäkyvyyttä voidaan edistää yhtenäistämällä ja kehittämällä valiokuntien käytäntöjä aloitteiden käsittelyssä ja tietojen julkistamisessa.Vuorovaikutteisuutta voidaan vahvistaa käsittelyprosessissa antamalla aloitteen edustajalle kommenttipuheenvuoro kuulemisten jälkeen ja lisäämällä yhteydenpitoa kansalaisiin aloitteiden valmistelu- ja selvitysvaiheessa.Heikommin resursoitujen aloitteentekijöiden tukemiseksi aloitteiden käsittelyä voidaan kehittää poistamalla vaara aloitteiden raukeamisesta vaalikauden lopussa ja vahvistamalla vakiintunut käytäntö laatia kaikista aloitteista valiokuntamietintö. Nämä muutokset vahvistavat demokraattista järjestelmäämme kokonaisuutena. </p

Ilmastopolitiikassa pitäisi kuunnella kansalaisia nykyistä enemmän

Puntaroivat kansalaiskeskustelut auttavat kehittämään kansalaisten hyväksymiä poliittisia ratkaisuja ilmastopoliittisiin kysymyksiin.</p

Self-reported health and democratic innovations: the case of citizens' initiative in Finland

This study examines the association between self-reported health and the propensity for supporting citizens’ initiatives in Finland. Democratic innovations such as the citizens’ initiative provide novel ways for citizens to express their preferences, but whether people in poor health make use of such possibilities remains unclear. The data come from the Finnish National Election Study (FNES2015), a cross-sectional representative sample of the Finnish population. The results suggest that self-reported health affects the propensity to sign citizens’ initiatives, but the effect depends on age since it mobilizes young citizens in poor health, whereas the impact on older generations is negligible.</p

Deliberative mini-publics facilitating voter knowledge and judgement : Experiment from a Finnish local referendum

This article examines the use of a Citizens’ Jury as a source of voter information in the context of a government-initiated (top-down) referendum. Several studies show the capacity of the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) to enhance voters’ knowledge and capacity of judgement in ballot initiative processes. However, similar procedures have not been tested outside the U.S.A. or in the context of government-initiated referendums. Our case is a Citizens’ Jury on Referendum Options organised in the municipality of Korsholm (Finland) in 2019. Even though the referendum concerned a contested municipal merger, we find that jury's participants were nonetheless satisfied with the deliberative process and found it impartial. A large majority of voters in Korsholm had read the statement by the jury and thought it was a useful and trustworthy source of information. Based on a field experiment, we find that reading the statement increased trust in the jury, factual knowledge, issue efficacy and perspective-taking.Peer reviewe