1. CONSENSUS CONFERENCES
PLANNING CELLS
Lay citizen deliberations

2. Consensus Conf + Planning
Cells
1. Include “ordinary” citizens
2. Unorganized  organized
– HIGHLY structured
3. Randomly selected citizens
4. 10-25 per group – (100-500 total)
5. 3-4 days of deliberation +
6. Elicit citizen preferences on policy issues
(social research)

3. STRUCTURE
Relationship to Expertise?
Briefing
materials
Present and Present.s
Disseminate Field Trips
Develop
Facilitation
report

4. NO EXPERTISE
NO SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE AND YET
PRIORITIZE CITZENS

5. PLANNING CELLS
INFORM ON INFORM ON
ISSUE ISSUE
MULTIPLE
CITIZENS’ MULTIPLE
HEARINGS HEARINGS
STEWARDS REPORT STEWARDS
PRESENTED
SMALL SMALL
GROUP SITE VISITS GROUP SITE VISITS
DISCUSSION INFORM ON DISCUSSION
ISSUE
MULTIPLE
HEARINGS
STEWARDS
SMALL
GROUP SITE VISITS
DISCUSSION

6. Planning Cells Cont.
• Emphasize small group work (5)
– More opportunities to be heard/interact
– Lessen fear of large audience
• Rotate group membership
• Resistance to team-building “games” = do
these manipulate?
• Results Aggregated, not synthesized = huge
amount of data (quantitatitive)

7. BOTH
• One time events
• Take huge efforts to plan (6-
18 mo.)
• Often convened by research
institutes
• Real concrete problem – not
hypothetical's
• Close ties to state
– Have a direct input (+)

8. Democracy in Denmark
• Highly participatory
(150+)
• Home of consensus
conferences
• Focused particularly on
technology assessment
(1987 +)
– Gene technology
– Air pollution
– Infertility
• 50 + in 13 countries

9. Planning Cells/Citizens’
Report
1970s
infrastructure problems
• 50 + worldwide (most in Germany)
• 12 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 day standard?
• Citizens’ report

10. EFFECTS/OUTCOMES
• Direct effects • Randomly invited
– Can change policy citizens do tend to
– Change citizen participate (many)
deliberators • Do roughly represent
• Indirect community
– Change public discourse • take it seriously
– Change ideas of policy • shift preferences
makers
• find it fulfilling
• Most support extending
process

11. Success/Failure
• REPORTS compete with advice from:
– Political parties
– Expert committees
– Interest groups
• Success depends on OUTSIDE factors:
– Willingness of decision makers to
LISTEN
– Ferocity of competing agendas
– Nature of public discourse

12. • “Dramatic shift from the
elite, technocratic model of
decision making”
• Commitment from politicians
and administrators are key to
outcome (lead to policy
outcomes)
• AIM = “elicit considered
input from lay citizens on
complex policy issues”

13. Resource intensive – strong financial support
Administratively demanding
Require someone to champion them
Unsustained contact (1 time)
Subject to manipulation via planning

14. BEST FOR ADDRESSING LESS SUCCESSFUL WHEN
• Publicly significant and • Binary outcomes
current issue
• Relevant to the lives of • Highly polarized
citizens issue
• Relatively urgent
problem with • Large inequalities
• Different options which within community
have very different
benefits and risks • A very quick
• involve social, ethical decision needs to
and technical be made
consequences
• Demarcated but

15. QUESTIONS
1. Random selection means some who want to
have a voice in the process do not.
– How is this problematic or unjust?
– How could it be justified?
2. Can non-experts and unaffiliated citizens
make legitimate contributions to public
policy? Why or why not?

16. GOALS/OUTCOMES
• Rearranges power dynamics
– Policy actors become presenters
– Expose coercive forms of power
• Transform communicative conditions
– Remove competition and
– Use reasoned argument and reflection
• Collective will? Individual will?
• Aiming for demographic diversity, not
statistical representation

17. cooperative discourse model
(Ortwin Renn)
Stakeholders –
values and
criteria
Expert –
Feedback develop
from public -- performance
accountability profiles of
options
lay public –
evaluate and
design policy