by Dr. Amy Lang, MASS LBP Associate
Until recently, most public engagement efforts have been small in scale and in effect: citizens are asked to participate in a one-shot public hearing, a focus group or a poll on the issues, without much follow-up. Their input may well be used to craft policy, or it may get lost in the labyrinth of bureaucratic decision-making. Although public consultation has been a standard part of the policy development process for decades, we've still seen a decline in public trust and engagement with politics. This should not come as a surprise: the tools that we use to engage the public do not have a clear or lasting impact, either on policy or on members of the public themselves.
Expanding the scope, scale and duration of public engagement holds the promise of reinventing the public's role in decision-making. Where traditional public engagement exercises have been small in the number of citizens consulted and in what citizens are asked to contribute, larger processes like the Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral Reform can produce more representative, more thoughtful and more responsible public decisions. Citizens' Assemblies invite a randomly selected group of citizens to meet together over an extended period, to learn about a policy issue, to weigh the options and make judgments about what course of action to take. The Assembly process authorizes ordinary citizens to contribute to the public good, and establishes a transparent standard for transforming their recommendations into decisions. It creates a network of people who are empowered to speak about a public issue, to follow up on their proposal and to participate more fully in their communities.
The Citizens' Assembly process was invented in British Columbia in 2003 to address the issue of electoral reform. Given the conflict of interest public officials have trying to change the rules of the electoral game, this was clearly an issue to hand over to citizens. The first Citizens' Assembly members met over the course of a year to learn about different electoral systems around the world, to conduct public hearings throughout the province, and to deliberate about what voting system would be best for British Columbia. Their recommended system went to a public referendum and got 58% support with very little public education on the issue. Although this did not meet the 60% threshold that would have automatically produced change, the support was high enough for the government to agree to another referendum and a better public education campaign in 2009.
Since then, the Ontario provincial government and the Dutch national government have each organized a Citizens' Assembly on electoral reform. Top university researchers have hailed the Assembly process as an important democratic innovation, and have proposed similar assemblies on other issues of democratic reform in California and Washington states. Policy makers in Canada are looking hard at this model to see if it can be used to engage citizens on other pressing issues.
Citizens' Assemblies work best for issues where weighing interests and making trade-offs among values is a key part of decision-making. Plenty of issues fit this description. Citizens' Assemblies can make an important contribution where the moral implications of a policy are unclear, as in the case of regulating new technology, and where values are deeply in conflict, as in the case of climate change policy or health care priorities. Citizens' Assemblies can also make an important contribution where formal representative institutions reach their limits, because decision-makers have a vested interest in the outcome, as in the case of electoral reform, or because of conflicts among overlapping and competing jurisdictions, as in the case of natural resource management. In short, expanded engagement processes like the Citizens' Assembly model make the biggest difference on political issues that involve tough choices among competing interests and values.
This might seem counterintuitive: on really tough issues the impulse is often to limit public consultation for fear of escalating conflict and generating a slew of contradictory demands. But the Citizens' Assemblies have demonstrated that expanding public engagement, rather than limiting it, can create the consensus that's needed for future action. How does expanding public engagement do this?
First, expanding engagement brings forward new information and ideas. A growing line of evidence suggests citizens may prioritize differently than elected officials and policy experts. In a Citizens' Assembly, a randomly selected group of citizens brings a more representative set of knowledge and life experiences to bear on the problem they're trying to solve. As they learn about the issues and each other, citizens are better able to identify policy solutions that address the distinct concerns they bring to the table. But this takes time and space for reflection, discussion and critical debate. In contrast, small-scale public consultation rarely gives citizens the time and the space to sort through the issues and critically reflect on their own and others' preferences.
Expanding engagement creates new relationships and opens up political possibilities. Citizens can make tough choices if they trust and know each other the result of an extended period of working together for a common purpose. An expanded public engagement process like a Citizens' Assembly creates relationships that span generations, geographies and partisan affiliations. Building relationships doesn't mean that citizens give up their own concerns and interests, but they do become more invested in meeting the concerns and interests of others, creating new possibilities for political action. Small-scale public consultation is not often structured to build the understanding and relationships that are necessary for innovative public action.
Expanding engagement creates public legitimacy. Small-scale public consultation may suffer from being unrepresentative, in the case of focus groups, or unreflective, in the case of polls and town hall meetings. The representative, thoughtful nature of a recommendation produced by a Citizens' Assembly can boost the legitimacy of a proposal in the eyes of the public. Survey research suggests voters who knew that that ordinary and informed Citizens' Assemblies had designed electoral reform proposals were more likely to support the referendums in BC and Ontario.
Expanding engagement creates opinion leaders. An important consequence of the Citizens' Assembly approach is that it gives participants the confidence to speak out about an issue. Based on their extended reflection, discussions with the public, and deliberations with each other, Citizens' Assembly members become opinion leaders in their communities. During the referendum campaigns in BC and Ontario Assembly members volunteered to make hundreds of community presentations about their proposals. Participants in these assemblies reported increased trust of their fellow citizens, interest in politics and self-confidence about participating in other public processes. Small-scale public consultation asks less of citizens and consequently has less of an impact on their capacity to lead their communities.
Expanding citizen engagement is not appropriate for every issue. Citizens' Assemblies are not useful tools for planning the delivery of clean drinking water, where technical standards need to guide public action. Nor are Citizens' Assemblies the most efficient way to meet priorities that are already firmly established. If decision-makers already have a strong commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions then they need to consult policy experts, rather than lay citizens, about the best way to meet their goals. Finally, expanding engagement is not worth the investment if decision-makers are unwilling to follow through on citizen recommendations. Ignoring the results of expanded engagement is likely to increase citizen disaffection with politics and policymakers.
But when there is no consensus on a course of action, when decision-makers are open to new information and creative solutions from people who are not normally part of the policy development process, and when there is the political will to invest in learning and creating new relationships, expanding engagement offers the possibility of creating public innovation and consensus. The Citizens' Assembly is one promising model for expanding engagement a process that creates more legitimate, representative and responsible public decisions.