Deliberative mini-publics facilitating voter knowledge and judgement

Democratic Constitutional Design invites to an open lecture on:

Deliberative mini-publics facilitating voter knowledge and judgement: Experience from a Finnish local referendum
Maija Setälä, Turku University
Veröld, Auditorium 023, Thursday 12 March, 12:05

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. or in the context of government-initiated referendums. Our case is a Citizens’ Jury on Referendum Options organized in the municipality of Korsholm (Finland) in 2019. Even though the referendum concerned a contested municipal merger, we find that Jury participants were nonetheless satisfied with the deliberative process and found it impartial. A large majority of voters had read the statement 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.

The talk is based on a paper in progress by: Maija Setälä, Maria Bäck, Henrik Serup Christensen, Mikko Leino og Kim Strandberg

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