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Talarico, Darielle

University of British Columbia

Participants in deliberative minipublics often derive the civic benefits of attitude and knowledge change. However, the minipublic is an ideal form of deliberative democracy that can only accommodate a relatively small number of participants. My dissertation explores a means of scaling up the deliberative minipublic experience as a private or individual practise. I conceptualize and experimentally test a digital deliberation within instrument that invites broad-based use while being substantive enough to meet minipublic standards. The instrument relies on an opinion sorting exercise called a Q sort and gamification techniques. My theoretical claim is that the instrument replicates and facilitates a deliberative process. Specifically, I hypothesize the Q sort creates subjective tensions as participants must read and reflect on a diversity of issue statements. To test my theory, I devise a survey experiment that divides respondents into one control condition (no Q sort) and three treatment conditions (T1: traditional Q sort; T2: gamified Q sort; T3: roleplaying Q sort). I compare treatment pre- and post-surveys results to those of the control group for the following possible civic attitude changes: opinion, knowledge, internal political efficacy, engagement willingness, and deliberative faith. Overall, the results suggest that the deliberation within instrument increases self-reported willingness to participate in civic engagement activities (T1 and T2). And specifically, the respondents indicated their increased willingness to attend future meetings (T1, T2, and T3) and increased willingness to vote (T2). However, the results also indicate that the addition of the roleplay activity may undermine the deliberative efficacy of the Q sort process. Overall, my research partially validates my theory that it is possible to facilitate a deliberation within or private deliberative experience. Thus, a digital deliberation within instrument may be a pathway for scaling up minipublic experiences and spreading its deliberative derived civic benefits.

Text

2022-10-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82863

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/