Strategic Uses of Public Deliberation¹

Abstract

A surprising number of interest advocates do participate in citizens’ forums despite the many challenges they pose. Yet it is not entirely clear why advocates would want to support processes of direct citizen deliberation. As argued in Chapter 3, participation on their part requires exposing their arguments to public scrutiny, committing resources to a process with unknown outcomes, and accepting lay citizens in the policy arena. However, the empirical cases show that there are clearly reasons why some advocates embrace the opportunity to engage in citizen deliberation. At the same time there are also groups and activists that resist such attempts and actively choose to subvert.