Argument Mapping in Public Consultation

Democratic innovations have blossomed in recent years as part of attempts to avert a democratic malaise. Attention of scholars has focussed on devices that aim to augment public consultation by further democratising their processes of recruitment, deliberation, and decision-making. Many of these deliberative processes aim to elicit considered judgements through collective reasoning of a diverse group of citizens. A key challenge is ensuring inclusion and equality of voice for participants while integrating expertise. Can existing and emerging technologies help rather than hinder this process? In computer science and related fields work on argument mining, mapping and reasoning has developed tools for identifying, mapping and interpreting argument structures and disagreements as they emerge. There are at least two potential uses of these tools in democratic innovation: First by classifying and mapping arguments we can develop visual presentations of the structure of a discussion and the key components of arguments. Such a tool can then be used to reduce redundancy, neatly structure discussion around support for claims, and expose unstated assumptions. Secondly, techniques can be used to identify signals or predictors of anti-democratic modes of speech allowing early intervention in discussions. The potential for computational linguistics to enhance political deliberation among citizens remains mostly untapped. In this paper we report on work carried out in partnership with city councils in England where these techniques were applied to existing consultation processes. We gathered data through a combination of quantitative measures of actor behaviour and interviews with stakeholders. We assess the extent to which using tools of argumentation in public consultation affects transparency, learning, inclusion, deliberation, and decision making itself.