What are the hard conversations happening around the world?

We have the honour and privilege of being members of a fabulous and illustrious group of academics and practitioners in the field of deliberative democracy.

This group provides us with a unique window into international deliberative democracy work.

We wanted to recognise this diversity of work and acknowledge our colleagues aiming to improve democracy in nearly every corner of the world.

But first, some stats! (You know we love data, as evidenced in this blog post from last month.)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been capturing data across the world about deliberative practice.

They have used a clear set of criteria to define what projects are included on the database. The criteria are:

1. Representativeness: Members of the process were randomly selected and demographically stratified to be broadly representative of the population.

2. Deliberation: Requires time – this was operationalised as a minimum one full day of live meetings in-person, online or hybrid.

3. Impact: Commissioned by a public authority who could respond to and act on the recommendations.

Some key messages have been revealed through their latest OECD Catching the Deliberative Wave research update. Access the document overview or go to the full article via this link.

We have extracted the following highlights.

GLOBAL OECD DATA ON DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY

1. The ‘deliberative wave’ has been building since 1979 and has gained momentum in the past 12 years.

2. The projects that are being undertaken are across many different countries.

3. Representative deliberative processes have been used at all levels of government.

4. The topics discussed through deliberation have varied enormously.

5. In around two out of three cases, at least half of the participants’ recommendations are accepted by public authorities.

6. The different sorts of deliberative models used varied also.

So, let’s now bring this into some smaller case studies that give you a sense of the complexity of topics, places and people.

EXAMPLES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

MINI-PUBLICS IN BRAZIL

Brazil’s Decidadania Program carried out five simultaneous mini-public online deliberations to promote informed citizen participation in public decision-making processes.

Topics included right to education, health system waiting times and preservation of the Amazon.

COVID-19 Citizens’ Assembly in North Macedonia

In an effort to combat low trust, misinformation and high vaccine hesitancy during COVID-19, North Macedonia activated a Citizens’ Assembly to ask everyday people what can be done to keep case numbers from rising again. Experts from the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, and senior representatives from medical research institutes answered questions about vaccines. After 40 hours, the assembly produced a final report with 15 policy recommendations to be presented to Government officials in public hearings.

Deliberative polling in South Korea

South Korea has used deliberative polling to tackle some significant and divisive issues:

South Korea’s future
Year: 2020
Participants: 502
Outcomes: Preferred vision for the future, highlighting environment and climate change as Koreans’ greatest concerns.

Closing two nuclear reactors
Year: 2017
Participants: 471
Outcomes: Almost 60% of participants voted in favour of completing construction on the nuclear reactors, with 40% agreeing with the President to remove the unfinished reactors for good.

Peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula
Year: 2011
Participants: 193
Outcomes: Discussion centred around the conditions, timing and consequences of reunifying the two Koreas. The entire process was shown as a one-hour program on KBS, the public broadcasting network in South Korea.

Citizens’ assembly in Budapest

In Budapest, a 50-person citizens’ assembly deliberated over four days to develop proposals for the city council to improve air quality in the Hungarian capital. The proposals were presented to the public on 10 November 2022 under the title ‘Breathe easy, Budapest!’. Suggestions includes more greenspace and less parking, improved infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists and more.

DELIBERATIVE POLLING IN MONGOLIA

Mongolia is the first country in the world to pass a law requiring the use of deliberative polling.

The very first poll ever conducted under the new law was held over a weekend in April 2017.

A group of 669 citizens of Mongolia gathered in Ulaanbaatar at the Government Palace to discuss six possible constitutional amendments. It resulted in the group deliberating to produce their top 10 proposals for constitutional change.

Tomorrow’s City: In December 2015, a random sample of 317 residents of Ulaanbaatar gathered for two days of deliberation about major infrastructure projects proposed in the city’s master plan.