A Deliberative Methodological Matrix for Systematically Comparing Democratic Innovations

The relationship of deliberative democracy to democratic innovations has become well established (Fung 2003; Goodin 2008; Smith 2009). However, there is a need for more systematic comparative research to understand why some democratic innovations are successful in promoting deliberation, and why others fail. Researching this relationship has led to a great deal of comparative methodological innovation in the study of deliberative democracy (Elstub, 2013; O’Flynn & Cinalli, 2013; Niemeyer & Dryzek, 2011; Fishkin & Luskin, 2005; Steiner et al, 2004; Steiner 2012; Ryan and Smith, 2012). Despite this, Thompson (2008) believes that the existing empirical evidence and methods employed on deliberative democracy have failed to engage sufficiently with normative theory. He further highlights the need to distinguish between three elements of analysis of deliberation: conceptual criteria, evaluative standards and empirical conditions. All three are potentially subject to empirical inquiry, but in different ways, and are required for deliberative democracy to move to a systemic level. In this paper, we argue that many of the methods employed to study deliberative democracy relate to some of these elements of analysis, but that none do, or can, cover all. We aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice and the disaggregation of the elements of analysis by developing a deliberative methodological matrix. We argue that the comparative methods of the DePER framework (Elstub, 2013), Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Ryan and Smith, 2012), the Discourse Quality Index (Steiner et al, 2004; Steiner 2012) and Q Method (Niemeyer & Dryzek, 2011), all have significant weaknesses and lacunae if employed in isolation when comparing the ability of democratic innovations to enact the norms of deliberative democracy. However, by combining them in a methodological milieu a symbiotic relationship is created as some of the main weaknesses of each individual method is overcome by the presence of another.