Deliberative Walks: citizen participation in local-level planning processes
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Deliberative Walks: citizen participation in local‑level planning processes Marina Lindell1 · Peter Ehrström2,3
© European Consortium for Political Research 2020
Abstract Recently, a focus on democratic innovations emphasising an increasing and deepening citizen participation in political decision-making has been evident. Deliberative Walks offer a participatory–deliberative process in which the participants, by deliberating in small groups and joining facilitated walks, tackle a complex policy issue that has highly intertwined social and physical dimensions. Deliberative Walks builds on the principle that two participatory methods, citizens’ juries and development walks, are combined. Deliberative Walks are influenced by place-based learning. And like in outdoor pedagogy, learning by moving between the abstract and concrete, as well as transforming experience into knowledge through reflection and communication, is encouraged. We analyse an implemented education-oriented version, Studentlab Deliberative Walks, with nineteen university students. The results, based on questionnaires, interviews and essays, indicate that it is fruitful to experience an issue with all senses. The development walk was seen as more important than the citizens’ jury. Participating in Deliberative Walks promoted inclusion in the decision-making process, enhanced learning, boosted self-confidence and developed feelings of empowerment. Keywords Active citizenship · Citizens’ jury · Citizen participation · Deliberation · Place-based learning
* Marina Lindell [email protected] Peter Ehrström [email protected] 1
Social Science Research Institute, Åbo Akademi University (Åbo Akademi), PB 311, 65101 Vaasa, Finland
2
Department of Vocational Education and Lifelong Learning, Faculty of Eduction, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
3
Regional Science, Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
Vol.:(0123456789)
M. Lindell, P. Ehrström
Introduction In large parts of the world, even in stable democracies, we see signs that democracy is backsliding. There is a growing disillusionment with democratic institutions, a decline in electoral turnout, lower levels of support and trust in politicians and political institutions, a rise of authoritarianism and populism, as well as a growing gap between citizens and decision-makers. In order to tackle these challenges and to increase the legitimacy of democratic decision-making, deliberative and participatory models of democracy have become more influential (Dalton 2004; Smith 2009). The contemporary crisis of democracy is, to a large part, a crisis of communication and citizens need to be engaged in democratic dialogue and not only act as isolated individuals when making political choices and developing opinions (Dryzek et al. 2019). Recently, a focus on democratic innovations emphasising an increasing and deepening citizen participation in political decision-making has been evident (Smith 2009; Bua and Escobar 2018). One of these democratic innovations, deliberative mini-publics, is r
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