Ensuring public opinion and policy preferences are reflected in policy outcomes is essential to a functional democracy. Traditionally, this engagement comes in many forms– town hall and public meetings, building relationships and having conversations with community members, conducting surveys and focus groups, and constituent services. More recently, citizens assemblies and other deliberative processes have been employed to bring together a set of stakeholders for their input. In a moment when people are dissatisfied with democracy, figuring out how to improve the input-to-action loop between people and their governments is critical.
There is a growing category of digital civic infrastructure tools oriented towards supporting public input that have emerged and are often referred to as deliberative technologies. This past fall, the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation co-hosted a workshop series on Designing Democratic Engagement for the AI Era with InnovateUS and The GovLab at Northeastern University to explore how public officials were experimenting with and implementing some of these deliberative technologies and associated practices in their own communities.
Growing Ecosystem of Deliberative Technologies
Public officials now have a myriad of digital deliberation tools and programs to choose from. Some considerations for selecting which tool(s) to use include factors such as whether the technology solution is open-source vs. paid, data collection and retention policies, the engagement modalities it offers (e.g. video, audio, surveys, written input), as well as the procurement processes, staffing requirements, and the overall objectives or scale of the engagement.
Below are a few examples of technologies being used to support public deliberation processes today:
- Engaged California is an initiative and digital platform that aims to channel input on complex issues from the people directly to leaders in state government. Their first effort, Los Angeles wildfire recovery, turned submitted comments into a policy action plan for the State of California. The project leveraged the Ethelo platform and included multiple rounds of discussion.
- Bowling Green, Kentucky, launched their BG 2050 Project to envision the future of the city. The project leveraged Polis to collect input and cluster areas of consensus, and Google’s Sensemaker to analyze data. They engaged 10% of the Bowling Green population, generated thousands of ideas, and reported in post-surveys that 70% of participants felt more confident that their voice mattered and 83% of participants gained a better understanding of different viewpoints.
- Other platforms facilitate real-time, small-group, guided discussions online and may include automation features to manage speaking time, agendas, and more. The Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, Cortico, and Frankly are all tools that use technology to aid in these deliberative conservations. The Stanford Online Deliberation Platform has been used in more than 40 countries and has had over 100,000 hours of deliberation on the platform.
- Multi-purpose platforms such as Decidim provide infrastructure to enable everything from participatory budgeting to assemblies. The platform has over three million users and is used by more than 500 organizations around the world.
This is just a small sample of the current ecosystem and their applications. The organization People Powered maintains a larger list of digital participation platforms.
Opportunities for Technology to Augment
Deliberative technologies can augment participatory processes and assist human facilitators, without necessarily replacing them. For example, in a deliberative discussion, an AI tools may:
- Help with transcription of the conversation to allow the facilitator to focus more on the actual facilitation and relationship-building aspect of the exercise.
- Identify some initial areas of consensus or themes from the conversation that a human could use as input in their interpretation of the results.
- Improve accessibility through offering real-time translation to support multi-lingual communities, or enabling people to participate across geographic distances.
- However, while some of these features of deliberative technologies and platforms can be valuable, a successful participatory process goes beyond just the underlying technology used.
Lessons for a Successful Participatory Process
Participatory processes with robust institutional support and commitment are more likely to be viewed as successful by the public–and while technology can help with some aspects of carrying out the execution of the engagement and gathering input, there needs to be real political support for there to be any action.
In a recent essay series, Deliberative Approaches to Inclusive Governance, authors who were involved in the Canadian Citizens’ Assemblies on Democratic Expression and the Obama Administration era digital engagement platforms “Open for Questions” and “We the People,” shared lessons in how giving citizens more voice, without actually ensuring government responsiveness, can end up breeding more cynicism amongst participants. It is critical that any engagement clearly communicates and sets expectations for how people’s input will be used, and then closes the loop by communicating how public input has led to action. If healthy democracy and increased public trust are critical outcomes of an engagement, aligned institutional support and clear communication before and after the engagement are necessary conditions.
While technology as a medium for public engagement and deliberation offers many benefits, some of the best approaches to engagement are still centered on meeting people where they are– these are the in-person interactions that build the social fabric of a community. There is a self-selection bias that can come with using digital tools and surveys (just as there is with who shows up at a public meeting), which might leave out those who don’t have the time, resources, or skillset to participate.
Deliberative technologies can play an effective hybrid role in augmenting civic engagement processes, but the key to democratic impact is not just in the tool, but in the institutional support and commitment to follow-through based on the results.
Suggested additional reading:
Sarah Hubbard is the Associate Director for Technology & Democracy at the Ash Center’s Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation.
Darshan Goux is the Senior Lab Director at the Ash Center’s Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.
