The 'Macro' Impacts of Deliberative Democratic Innovations

Abstract

We now know a good deal about how deliberative processes work and in particular their impact on participants individually - the micro impacts, and on participants as a group - the meso impacts. What we don’t know as much about is their impact on the broader democratic system in which they operate - the macro impacts and how these impacts can be operationalized. It is often assumed that deliberative processes have somehow an impact on representative democracy (outside of the deliberative processes) or on the broader community (non-participants). But what is missing up to date is a particular operationalization of these impacts: What does impact on representative democracy actually mean? What does impact on the broader community mean? This panel will look at what we know about the macro impacts of deliberative processes and how we might approach designing empirical studies to further our understanding. We are interested in both theoretical and empirical papers. Theoretical papers are welcome if they provide an operationalization of macro impacts of deliberative processes. Empirical papers are welcome if they focus on particular macro impacts, for instance policy or institutional effects or effects on the whole citizenry.

Title	Details
Mobilizing Media: Estimating the Impact of Participatory Budgeting on Community-Level Political Expression	View Paper Details
Citizen Participation and the Policy Process	View Paper Details
How do political elites perceive the role and potential of democratic innovations?	View Paper Details
Deliberative Democracy and the So What Question: The Effects of Belgium’s G1000	View Paper Details