When should deliberative public engagement be considered?
From my perspective, deliberative public engagement should be considered in the following cases.
Firstly, deliberative public engagement is suitable when the policy- or decision-makers lack the range of experience or viewpoint to make robust decisions about complex issues because of conflicting interests, beliefs, values, and understandings in society. In a certain society, the perspective of citizens and groups of people are not the same as they each have their own customs, cultures, and religions. For example, a policy for population biobanking is a significant issue that helps the healthcare system in the point of view of the government or science. However, in some cultures, the biobank is related to people’s identify, customs and it conflicts with these communities’ values. In this case, deliberative public engagement can help to figure out the different values among a group of people in the society to change the approach to the issue from “what should I do” to “what should we do” because there are diverse impacts when making a robust decision.
Secondly, when there is a divisive and controversial topic in the society that exists at least two main opposite ideas about an issue, deliberative public engagement is a suitable approach to demonstrate accountability for the decision that will be made through listening to the contributions of the citizens from both points of view. For instance, there are some people who support farming more genetically modified food to increase the production of crops to supply adequate food in periods of food crisis occurring in some places in the world. However, there also some people support the idea of prohibiting genetically modified food because they consider that this kind of food is not good for health if used it in the long term. In this case, deliberative public engagement becomes a method to demonstrate accountability and to get public support when making policies that related to a controversial topic.
Thirdly, there can be hybrid topics that require the combination of technical and real-world knowledge when before making a decision the policymaker should consider applying deliberative public engagement. Hybrid topics require more reflection on not only general but also practical knowledge to evaluate the impacts on people’s lives. The government on the one hand receives the participation of expert panellists, and on the other hand, deliberative public engagement widens the lens of policymakers about what citizens are concerned with. For instance, a policy related to mandatory vaccination should be based not only on contributions from experts but also on the public’s views as this issue impacts directly on citizens’ lives.
Two advantages of small-group online deliberation compared with small-group face-to-face deliberation.
The first advantage is that small-group online deliberation is more convenient for many people to be involved in without the limitations of time and physical distance. With an Internet-connected device, people can discuss the issue that they are interested in anywhere and anytime. Compared to small-group online deliberation, small-group face-to-face deliberation requires participants to spend a certain time to join the discussion and the participants need to commute to the venue holding the workshop. This causes inconveniences for those participants who are busy and far away from the location.
The second advantage is that small-group online deliberation has a high speed of spread responses and feedbacks. This means that comments or feedback from a participant can be viewed by the other participants and the other participants can respond to the commenter quickly. It creates a flow of discussion and helps to figure out the issue speedily. Dissimilarly, small-group face-to-face deliberation needs time to summarize the main ideas and then circulate these to the concerned people for their feedback or response. Sometimes, small-group face-to-face deliberation has time pressures that limit the contributions of the participants.
However, small-group online deliberation also has some disadvantages when compared to small-group face-to-face deliberation
The first disadvantage of small-group online deliberation is that we do not know clearly about the background or level of understanding of the issue of the participators. Hence, it is hard to confirm the value of the information and identify the perspective of the participants. On the other hand, small-group face-to-face deliberation generally involves participants that have a certain common background or expectation when joining the group discussion. Therefore, the information they give should be more trustworthy as each member knows each other and their background or perspective.
The second disadvantage of small-group online deliberation is that this type of approach needs to have a standard IT infrastructure and IT knowledge to engage online. This may not be suitable for developing countries or rural areas where IT infrastructure is limited and for those people who do not have adequate equipment and IT skills. In contrast, small-group face-to-face deliberation may work well in this situation as it is easier to hold a workshop in a rural area rather than to prepare IT infrastructure and train IT skills only for online engagement purposes.
