Theme Panel: Innovating for Democracy: New Technologies, New Roles

July 24, 2024 APSA Annual Meeting, Theme Panels Comments Off on Theme Panel: Innovating for Democracy: New Technologies, New Roles

Innovating for Democracy: New Technologies, New Roles

Friday, September 6, 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Co-sponsored by the Democratic Innovations Related Group
Full Paper Panel

Participants:
(Chair) Jane Mansbridge, Harvard Kennedy School
(Discussant) Christopher F. Karpowitz, Brigham Young University
(Discussant) Stephanie Burkhalter, Humboldt State University

Session Description:
As the applications of deliberative minipublics proliferate, citizens are consulted with new technologies, and they are being asked to take on new roles. These innovations, some employing AI to varying extents within the deliberative process itself, are opening new vistas for the application of deliberation to public problem solving. What innovations work well (or not) and why? What problems are they encountering? This panel draws on projects from various countries with different technologies and different expectations about what members of the public need to do. Can deliberative minipublics, whether citizens assemblies, Deliberative Polls, or other designs, be made more frequent and practical by using new technology? Can they become so frequent that we could achieve a more deliberative society? Or do they constrain or truncate the deliberative process?

Papers:
Good Deliberation Regardless of Mode? An Experimental Comparison
Kimmo Gronlund, Abo Akademi University; Kaisa Herne, University of Turku; James S. Fishkin, Stanford University; Marina Lindell, Åbo Akademi University; Alice Siu, Stanford University

Toward Citizen-Legislators: Evidence from Two French Citizens’ Assemblies
Helene E. Landemore, Yale University

America in One Room: Democratic Reform — Using New Technology for Deliberation
James S. Fishkin, Stanford University; Larry Diamond, Stanford University; Alice Siu, Stanford University; Valentin Bolotnyy, Hoover Institution; Joshua Yoshio Lerner, NORC at the University of Chicago; Norman Bradburn, University of Chicago

Integrating AI and Gamification into Online Public Consultation
John Gastil, Pennsylvania State University

Transnational Climate Deliberation: Improving Deliberativeness and Engagement
Jane Suiter, Dublin City University