Browsing by Author "Kahane, David"
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Item Citizen panels and opinion polls: convergence and divergence in policy preferences(2018) Boulianne, Shelley; Loptson, Kristjana; Kahane, DavidCitizen panels offer an alternative venue for gathering input into the policy-making process. These deliberative exercises are intended to produce more thoughtful and informed inputs into the policymaking process, compared to public opinion polls. This paper highlights a six day deliberative event about energy and climate issues, tracking opinion changes before and after the deliberation, as well as six months after the deliberation. In two of the five policy domains, opinions change as a result of the deliberation and these changes endure six months after the deliberation. The tracking of opinions across the three points in time reveals a pattern of convergence between panelists’ views and poll results for three of the five policy domains. Panelists were overly optimistic about many of the policy options prior to deliberation, but became more critical of these policies post-deliberation, moving their opinions closer to those of poll respondents.Item Mobilizing mini-publics: the causal impact of deliberation on civic participation using panel data(2020) Boulianne, Shelley; Chen, Kaiping; Kahane, DavidDeliberative exercises may re-invigorate civic life by building citizens’ capacity to engage in other types of civic activities. This study examines members of a citizens’ panel (n=56) who participated in a six-day deliberative event on climate change and energy transition in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) in 2012. We compared panelists’ civic engagement, political interest, and political knowledge with those of the general population using a concurrent random digit dialing survey conducted 2.5 years after the event (n=405). Panelists are more likely to talk about politics, and volunteer in the community compared to their counterparts in the larger population. Examining three points in time, we reveal a trajectory of increasing political knowledge and civic engagement. Finally, we examine the mechanisms that mobilize panelists into greater civic engagement. This study illustrates how deliberative events could strengthen engagement in civic and political life, depending on the degree to which deliberation was perceived to have occurred.