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Deliberative Democracy and the Deliberative Mini-Public framework

Design · All designs
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description

Deliberative Democracy emerged around 1990 as a "deliberative turn" in democratic theory, responding to a crisis of confidence in how typical democratic systems engage citizens. It operates by convening a Deliberative Mini-Public (DMP) with three core features: "Influence", "Inclusion", and "Deliberation", the latter providing "open dialogue, access to information, respect, space to understand and reframe issues, and movement to toward consensus". Random or stratified selection delivers the mini-public aspect; neutral facilitation, balanced expert witnesses, and senior-leadership sanction are further key features. The article applies DD as an organisational consultation on AI ethics in higher education.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • Sanction by senior leadership with commitment that the DMP's recommendations matter, so the process is not tokenistic
  • Neutral facilitation by a person or team with no stake in the outcome
  • Random or stratified sampling to deliver the mini-public aspect and mitigate bias

Constraints

  • The use of DD for an organisational rather than citizen consultation, and for AI ethics, is novel, so established practice evidence is limited
  • Who sets the DMP's purpose/agenda may be contentious; arm's-length conduct is advised if framing bias is feared

Target Learners

  • higher education students
  • educators and tutors
  • institutional leaders

Learning Goals

  • understanding ethical issues of analytics/AI educational technology
  • deliberative decision-making and consensus skills

Claims

Examples

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Key Sources

  • Teresa Swist, Simon Buckingham Shum, Kalervo N. Gulson. (2024). Co-producing AIED Ethics Under Lockdown: an Empirical Study of Deliberative Democracy in Action. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 34:670–705. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-023-00380-z
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id deliberative-democracy-dmp-framework
title Deliberative Democracy and the Deliberative Mini-Public framework
description Deliberative Democracy emerged around 1990 as a "deliberative turn" in democratic theory, responding to a crisis of confidence in how typical democratic systems engage citizens.
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-28
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — teresa-swist-2024

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