Last month we unveiled our all-time deliberation stats and this month we are pleased to share the detailed report that explores the impact of deliberative processes on the participants.
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT HERE
WHY DID WE DO THIS?
We love research! We also love learning, adapting and exploring what’s possible with any method or approach. It’s because of this, five years ago we thought that we should start understanding the 'before and after’ perspectives of the participants in our processes.
This evidence base then provides us with insights for improvements and also helps us talk to anyone interested in deliberative democracy.
Five areas of impact were considered, and changes in participants were measured in relation to:
level of previous and future intended civic involvement
confidence that community input would influence decision-making
trust in and views on the accountability of the sponsoring organisation
views on how authentic, collaborative, genuine and worthwhile the deliberative process was
quality of information provided to participants.
THE FACTS
Since 2016 we (MosaicLab) have facilitated 40 different short- and long-form deliberations.
Twenty-three (23) of those deliberations included pre- and post-survey questions for 741 survey respondents.
The survey questions were all leading us to answering the question:
‘Does Deliberative Democracy make a difference?’
THE RESULTS
The results from the surveys were absolutely fascinating. Below are some highlights, download the full report for more:
249% growth in # of respondents who said they would be ‘involved’ or ‘highly involved’ in future civic affairs
212% growth in the # of respondents who said they felt ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’ that their recommendations would influence decision-making
51% growth in the number of respondents who said they felt ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’ that their recommendations would be implemented
66% growth in the # of respondents who said they believed the sponsoring organisation was ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ trustworthy and accountable
185% growth in the # of respondents who said they believed the process was ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ collaborative, genuine and worthwhile
85% of respondents said they felt that information provided during the process was ‘clear, useful and balanced’ or ‘very clear, useful or balanced’.
THE CONCLUSIONS
It is clear from this small piece of longitudinal research, that deliberative processes can significantly change the relationship that organisations have with their communities and stakeholders.
This methodology gives power to the people and in so doing brings them closer to the decision-makers, increases their knowledge about issues that affect them and builds trust between the public and public authorities.
In the current environment where trust is declining in government – only 43% of Australians trusting both government leaders and CEOs (Ref: Edelman Trust Barometer 2022, https://www.edelman.com.au/trust-barometer-2022-australia) – it’s this sort of evidence that helps people assess their engagement approaches and choose methods that specifically build a better connection between decision-makers and the people they serve.
While we know we are a private consultancy – we actively believe in principles, processes and people over profit. Part of living up to those values is actively learning, reviewing and exploring ways to improve our practice. This research is a big part of that commitment.
We want to acknowledge the many practitioners and academics who paved the way exploring the deep impacts of deliberative processes for decades. Some examples are here.
We also want to acknowledge the effort and hard work by the 23 organisations and the participants who dedicated their time to the processes we were lucky enough to be a part of.
We hope this paper provides some useful intelligence to inform the advocacy of genuine engagement approaches into the future.
OUR NEW DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY RESOURCE HUB
We recently launched a Deliberative Democracy Resource Hub – a place to share free guides and downloads, access to our video library, project case studies and more.
Read more about why we created the Hub in this blog post.
PARTICIPANT REFLECTIONS ON THEIR DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY EXPERIENCE
“Really positive experience. I feel I have accomplished something.
I feel I have played a part in something bigger.”
Community Panellist
“The process shows that if you can get a group of people who don’t know each other together, quite randomly, and work with them over a period of time, you have the opportunity for people to voice possibilities and visions.”
“This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my adult life. I genuinely believe our broader society would benefit from more of this and that it’s a solution to many of the ailments and disagreements and troubles that we face.”
Citizens’ Panellist
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