What citizens want from deliberative forms of participation: mapping legitimacy perceptions with an online survey and a preference experiment

• Applicant: Professor Dr. André Bächtiger
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 432370948

What do citizens want from deliberative forms of participation, such as citizen juries or mini-publics? Deliberative forms of citizen participation have moved to the forefront of democracy research in past years. Their promise is to enhance to the legitimacy of democratic decision-making processes and policy outcomes. At the same time, critics have argued that deliberative forms of citizen participation privilege already advantaged citizens, lack decisiveness and do not affect public discourse. Cristina Lafont has provided the most fundamental attack on deliberative forms of participation: she argues that deliberative mini-publics lack democratic legitimacy since only few citizens participate and make decisions while not being democratically accountable to non-participating citizens.The project asks whether non-participating citizens actually perceive such a legitimacy problem. In a first step, the project evaluates whether citizens have a basic preference for deliberative forms of participation. In a second step, it analyses the design criteria of deliberative participation – recruitment, group composition and size, discussion format, decision-making and authorization – and their effects on legitimacy perceptions of non-participating citizens (in conjunction with their preferences and expectations). Overall, the project evaluates whether and under what conditions citizens view deliberative participation as a legitimate form of governance. It provides answers to three research questions:1. Which general preferences and expectations do citizens have for deliberative forms of participation (demand)?2. What design criteria enhance the legitimacy of the latter (supply)?3. How does information on deliberative forms of participation and its design criteria affect the legitimacy perceptions of citizens (knowledge)?These research questions will be explored on the basis of an online survey with a preference experiment (paired conjoint design) in Germany. Participants will be presented with descriptions of hypothetical deliberative participation scenarios, randomly varying the above-mentioned design criteria (recruitment, authorization etc) as well as issue type (high vs. low salience) and outcome favourability. Furthermore, participants will be randomly allocated to two groups: one group gets a glossary plus information on the pros and cons of deliberative participation and its design criteria; the other group only gets a glossary.The project is the first to map preferences and expectations of citizens vis-à-vis deliberative forms of participation as well as analysing their legitimacy perceptions in conjunction with design criteria.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Australia, Belgium
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Sofie Marien; Professor Dr. Simon Niemeyer