Deliberations

Title: Online Platforms for Deliberative Engagement

I thank the Government 2.0 Taskforce and Lindsay Tanner, MP for the opportunity to make this submission.

Introduction

In February, 2009, Senator John Faulkner opened Australia's first Citizens' Parliament, an event convened by three ARC-funded university research teams and an NGO, held at Old Parliament House, Canberra. 150 citizens had been randomly selected from across Australia to demonstrate how a diverse "mini-public" can work civilly and constructively, learning from experts and each other, to address complex ideas about how our democratic system should work. (Disclosure: I was a member of the organising team, designed and managed the public website, and designed the random selection procedure.)

Among others, here are four features of the Citizens' Parliament, and of small-scale deliberative processes such as Citizens' Juries and Consensus Conferences:

Unlike typical consultation events like town meetings and community cabinets, public engagement should reach beyond those pushing barrows, the techno-savvy or the 'usual suspects'. There is irony in the fact that I am part of only a small group who are actively engaged by the Taskforce and PublicSphere. The Government should be wary of engagement processes that open them to stakeholder pressure. Sometimes crowd-sourcing actually needs a diverse crowd of contributors! If public engagement is sought to legitimately gauge an unblinkered range of public views, then a representative sample of the public should be sought.
Most consultation events do not go beyond the government commitment of "hearing" or "surveying" the public. For some situations, this is fine. But for other matters, the public can be empowered to do more. For example, engaging the public to interactively scope an inquiry question at the start, as the Taskforce has, may ensure inclusiveness and legitimise the whole process. There is research evidence of increased public trust in a government that empowers a participating public.
Typical consultation events follow a question/answer format that pits the public participants against a panel of policy experts, partisans and stakeholders. Such debates are often adversarial and driven by rhetoric rather than fact. The media likes the fireworks that invariably ensue. Instead, deliberative processes bring everybody together to talk civilly and meaningfully with the help of skilled and neutral facilitation.
Deliberative formats are agnostic to political beliefs. Participants may bring strong communitarian, free-market or stewardship sentiments to the assembly, and conclude with those beliefs unthreatened. There is ample research evidence that deliberation increases understanding and tolerance of difference, because participants learn from each other. Many participants at the Citizens' Parliament lowered their initial stridency for policy ideas that lacked inclusiveness.

As ANU political science Professor John Dryzek said in his Senate Occasional Lecture about the Citizens' Parliament in April, "it is crystal clear that we need to create space for more deliberation in our politics."

With that introduction, I now take you to the 2.0 part of this submission.

Online Deliberative Platforms

Leading up to the Citizens' Parliament, participants had spent ten weeks online using a new example of an emerging class of online collaboration platform that enables deliberation. Brian Sullivan, an independent software developer based in San Francisco, had constructed CivicEvolution (www.civicevolution.org) for generating change proposals. Web 2.0 technologies open the way to new interface strategies that are easy and accessible for everyone to use, even those with limited exposure to computers.

What stood out about Brian's pilot project was its capacity to engage participants with more than just threaded discussion and ranking, now familiar and useful features of Web 2.0 services. Participants generate proposal topics and ideas, then willingly form teams on-the-fly around them and work with commitment to explore the solution space. The clear and flexible workflow structure reduces the need for moderator intervention. Importantly, consensus is sought but not forced, thus encouraging cross-cutting engagement.

CivicEvolution invites participants to share their values, beliefs and lived experience to the actual framing and design of possible solutions. CivicEvolution is one of the first online platforms that attempts to match the experience of face-to-face deliberation, but from participants' own homes.

Brian adapted CivicEvolution as an online deliberative platform that integrated with the Citizens' Parliament process. We were very pleased with the outcome, but acknowledge that more work needs to be done.

I also commend the Taskforce for its use of the NationBuilder software to prioritise issues, as it helped structure dialogue around important discussions with its "talking points" feature. Such organising features promote the reflection and reciprocity that is vital for cross-cutting conversations.

Project: Online Deliberative Process

I request that the Taskforce allocate project funding to run one or more online deliberative processes for one or more federal Departments. For example, Health Department Minister Nicola Roxon (who is also my local MP) recently told me that she is looking for innovative and cost-effective ways of engaging the public about health policy issues that to date have received polarised attention.

Online deliberative processes could also be run in conjunction with small-scale face-to-face events facilitated by members of the International Association for Public Participation (www.iap2.org), which has a large and capable Australian affiliate (www.iap2.org.au). I suggest that the Taskforce works with IAP2 to explore the limits and possibilities of citizen engagement (disclosure: I am a student member of IAP2).

Whilst I am a strong supporter of Brian Sullivan and his CivicEvolution platform, I encourage the Taskforce to pilot several solutions to encourage an exploration of innovative Web 2.0 features which would be of benefit to online deliberation and integration with Departmental activity.

In the USA, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD, www.thataway.org) is the peak body for convenors, practitioners, consultancies, process designers and facilitators involved in deliberative processes. Brian is currently working on a small team commissioned by NCDD to compile a report about online technologies currently used to support deliberative processes. This report will be provided to the Obama Administrations' Office of Public Engagement, which is well underway in its investigation of Government 2.0 innovation. I suggest that the Taskforce approach NCDD for a copy of that report.

I encourage the Taskfo rce to invite university-based teams to run pilot projects that involve online deliberation. Academics at several university research institutes and departments around Australia are investigating deliberative processes, but authentic trial opportunities remain rare. Projects should bring together the expertise in education departments regarding collaborative online learning, with political scientists and sociologists who are familiar with citizen engagement. The emergence of online deliberation platforms is so recent that there is little Australian research about them. As with the Citizens' Parliament, additional academic funding could be sought from the Australian Research Council.

I would be pleased to assist the Taskforce further if requested.

Sincerely,

Ron Lubensky

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