Seeing like a citizen: how being a participant in a Citizens Assembly changed everything I thought I knew about deliberative mini-publics …

Abstract

This paper presents a participant-observation account of my experience as a randomly selected participant at a Citizens’ Assembly. I reflect on what the unique experience of ‘seeing like a citizen’ can add to accepted understandings and practices of mini-public deliberation. I find that the experience, though energising, exciting and ultimately hugely worthwhile, also upended many of my prior assumptions grounded in academic scholarship and previous experience as an observer, facilitator and organiser of such events. I draw on the experience to shed new light on the capacity of assembled citizens to: accurately reflect the concerns of the broader community; soberly digest and reflect on evidence; earnestly engage in reasoned argumentation with one another; carefully reach sophisticated or thought-through recommendations as a collective; or ultimately gain a broader sense of efficacy from their engagement as individuals. The point in making these observations is neither to critique the Citizens’ Assembly I was part of (which was in fact exemplary of best practice), not to critique moves toward deliberative innovation more broadly (which I continue to support). Instead, my hope is to push forward scholarship and practice to respond and adapt to little considered challenges.

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ORCID for John Boswell: orcid.org/0000-0002-3018-8791

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