Deliberative panels as a source of public knowledge: A large-sample test of the Citizens' Initiative Review.

Evolving US media and political systems, coupled with escalating misinformation campaigns, have left the public divided over objective facts featured in policy debates. The public also has lost much of its confidence in the institutions designed to adjudicate those epistemic debates. To counter this threat, civic entrepreneurs have devised institutional reforms to revitalize democratic policymaking. One promising intervention is the Citizens' Initiative Review (CIR), which has been adopted into law in Oregon and tested in several other states, as well as Switzerland and Finland. Each CIR gathers a demographically stratified random sample of registered voters to form a deliberative panel, which hears from pro and con advocates and neutral experts while assessing the merits of a ballot measure. After four-to-five days of deliberation, each CIR writes an issue guide for voters that identifies key factual findings, along with the most important pro and con arguments. This study pools the results of survey experiments conducted on thirteen CIRs held from 2010 to 2018, resulting in a dataset that includes 67,120 knowledge scores collected from 10,872 registered voters exposed to 82 empirical claims. Analysis shows that reading the CIR guide had a positive effect on voters' policy knowledge, with stronger effects for those holding greater faith in deliberation. We found little evidence of directional motivated reasoning but some evidence that reading the CIR statement can spark an accuracy motivation. Overall, the main results show how trust in peer deliberation provides one path out of the maze of misinformation shaping voter decisions during elections.

Deliberations with American Indian and Alaska Native People about the Ethics of Genomics: An Adapted Model of Deliberation Used with Three Tribal Communities in the United States.

BACKGROUND: This paper describes the design, implementation, and process outcomes from three public deliberations held in three tribal communities. Although increasingly used around the globe to address collective challenges, our study is among the first to adapt public deliberation for use with exclusively Indigenous populations. In question was how to design deliberations for tribal communities and whether this adapted model would achieve key deliberative goals and be well received. METHODS: We adapted democratic deliberation, an approach to stakeholder engagement, for use with three tribal communities to respect tribal values and customs. Public deliberation convenes people from diverse backgrounds in reasoned reflection and dialogue in search of collective solutions. The deliberation planning process and design were informed by frameworks of enclave deliberation and community-based participatory research, which share key egalitarian values. The deliberations were collaboratively designed with tribal leadership and extensive partner input and involvement in the deliberations. Each deliberation posed different, locally relevant questions about genomic research, but used the same deliberation structure and measures to gauge the quality and experience of deliberation. RESULTS: A total of 52 individuals participated in the deliberations across all three sites. Deliberants were balanced in gender, spanned decades in age, and were diverse in educational attainment and exposure to health research. Overall, the deliberations were positively evaluated. Participant perceptions and external observer datasets depict three deliberations that offered intensive conversation experiences in which participants learned from one another, reported feeling respected and connected to one another, and endorsed this intensive form of engagement. CONCLUSION: The adapted deliberations achieved key deliberative goals and were generally well received. Limitations of the study are described.

Deliberations About Genomic Research and Biobanks With Citizens of the Chickasaw Nation.

Amid the rapid growth of precision medicine and biobanking initiatives, there have been few efforts at cataloging the implications of these initiatives for Indigenous communities. A consortium involving a university and three American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) community partners is working to promote deliberation and dialog in AIAN communities about the potential benefits and risks of genomic research for those communities. The first of the consortium's three planned deliberations was held in September 2018 with citizens of the Chickasaw Nation, a federally recognized tribe in south-central Oklahoma with a full-service medical center and growing research capacity and oversight. Consortium members and the Chickasaw Nation Department of Health Administration designed a deliberative forum for Chickasaw citizens to consider the potential benefits and risks of participating in genomic research and biobanks. In this manuscript, we describe the deliberative method used in this event and report on the ideas discussed during the tribal citizens' deliberations. Chickasaw citizens identified many risks and benefits associated with genomic research and biobanks, including the potential for medical advancements that might benefit the Chickasaw community as well as the possibility of discrimination against the Chickasaw people. Although participants thought the potential benefits outweighed the potential risks, that moral calculation was contingent on whether control of the research and biobanks rested with Chickasaw leadership, researchers, and citizens.

An Alaska Native community's views on genetic research, testing, and return of results: Results from a public deliberation.

As genetic testing technology advances, genetic testing will move into standard practice in the primary care setting. Genetic research, testing, and return of results are complex topics that require input from Alaska Native and American Indian (ANAI) communities as policies are developed for implementation. This study employed a day and half long public deliberation with ANAI primary care patients to elicit value-laden views of genetic research, testing, and return of results. Participants emphasized the need for a balance between the potential for genetics research, testing, and return of results to empower individuals and improve health with the potential to expose individuals and communities to privacy breaches, discrimination, and emotional harms. Public deliberation was well received by this group of participants and elicited rich discussion on the complex topic of genetic research, testing, and return of results.

Deliberative democracy and historical perspectives on American Indian/Alaska native political decision-making practices.

Public deliberation has risen to the forefront of governance as a technique for increasing participation in policy making. Scholars and practitioners have also noted the potential for deliberation to give greater influence to historically marginalized populations, such as Indigenous peoples. However, there has been less attention paid to the potential fit between the ideals of deliberation and the governance and decision making practices of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) peoples. In this paper, we begin to address this gap by analyzing accounts of AI/AN governance from the perspective of deliberation, and note areas of overlap, synergy, and conflict. We conduct a close reading of key historical and ethnographic accounts of four historical AI/AN contexts-the Iroquois Confederation under the Great Law of Peace, 19th century accounts of the Ojibwa village, the Santa Clara Pueblo government in pre-19th century, and Yup'ik village life in the early 20th century-and a more contemporary case in the form of the Santa Clara Pueblo's Constitution from the Indian Reorganization Act period. We then apply two sets of key criteria for deliberative democracy-from the scholars Robert Dahl and John Gastil-to these accounts and note the ways in which each system is or is not congruent with these frameworks of deliberation. We find variations between these historical tribal contexts in our analysis. Social components of deliberation, such as respectful discussion and equal opportunities to participate, were partially or fully present in many accounts of governance practices, but it was less clear whether the analytic components, such as discussion of a range of solutions, were included in some forms of tribal governance. We then explore the potential implications of our findings for public deliberation within and in AI/AN tribes. We note that deliberative scholars and practitioners should be wary of over-generalizing about AI/AN tribes.

Fostering Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research in Tribal Communities: The Center for the Ethics of Indigenous Genomic Research.

Genomic research raises unique ethical concerns among Alaska Native and American Indian (AN/AI) people and their communities. The Center for the Ethics of Indigenous Genomic Research (CEIGR) was created to foster research that takes these concerns into account while considering the sovereign status of AN/AI tribal nations. Relationships developed within CEIGR have allowed for effective, collaborative research among individuals who come from diverse cultures, political and historical backgrounds, and academic disciplines, and who work for organizations with varying resources, capacities, and expectations. The CEIGR framework may inform other groups seeking to conduct social science research related to genomic research with tribal people and their communities.