What's the difference?

Ever wondered what the difference is between deliberative and consultation? Read on...

Dan Popping, October 2024

When talking about my recent career shift to support and deliver deliberative processes, the most frequently asked question I get is…. “But what’s the difference?”

At democracyCo we specialise in designing and delivering deliberative engagement processes, which is much further along the engagement spectrum than ‘Consult’.

For me, one of the most obvious differences is, “diversity?”

Dan Popping, Director Projects reflects on how deliberative differs from everyday consultation, in his first blog since joining our team!

Seek Diversity

Deliberative processes place a greater focus on diversity and do this in a few ways. To start, we often recruit participants using a ‘sortition’ process (scientific double randomised selection process) to ensure a representative and diverse group of people are involved. This is very different than engaging the usual voices and those who ‘self-identify’ and are highly motivated to get involved for a specific reason or outcome.

Diversity is further strengthened by bringing in and considering a wide range of opinions and views. These can include topic experts, local perspectives, minority views, or even polarising standpoints, all which support participants to explore and understand different perspectives and views, before judgement is made.

Commitment

A strong and public commitment to do something with the outcome is another foundation for deliberative processes. It is much more than “we are listening”. A strong commitment that recommendations from the process will be implemented will not only encourage people to turn up and engage deeply but will also build trusted relationships and allow participants to find common ground together.

Time

When you are addressing complex issues through deliberation, it takes time! Start slow at the start to go fast at the end, and start together. Deliberative processes allocate adequate time for sharing, listening and learning, reflecting and challenging assumptions, the thoughtful weighing-up of options and most importantly discussion and dialogue to agree and find ways forward.

Build understanding

 Providing information that people can critically analyse and interrogate is an important element of a deliberative process. Deliberative processes support people to interrogate information critically and to understand and address personal biases.  Values and framing activities are often used to support people understanding why they understand something one way (potentially different to another) and allows them to engage in discussions with high levels of participation, and respect towards others and those with opposing views and opinions.  

Finding common ground

Deliberative processes acknowledge and celebrate disparate views, so that people can then find common ground on a way forward. Often starting with an open question or problem, the process should support ‘listening to understand’ and allow room for people to move towards a constructive and rational conversations to find a place that everyone can live with. This is vastly different from traditional consultation processes where people are asked “to have their say”, and individual needs are pitched against each other further creating polarisation and angst.

Measuring impact

In addition to measuring project outcomes and impact, understaning  participant  views, and why they hold those views on certain areas/topics (via pre & post deliberation) is another distinguishing feature of deliberative processes. This data not only helps to assess and demonstrate the shift in participants views but can also provide key insights into what made them change (eg a key facts or data set, a specific stakeholder viewpoint, a local story, or perhaps a trusted presenter/expert). This helps decision makers to have greater confidence in the way forward and can also help recommendations made by citizens last overtime.

Deliberative democratic processes involve – “a diverse group of people having time to consider evidence (information, facts, perspectives) on an issue and come to a decision about what to do (judgement) … and there is a commitment by the commissioning agent to act”

Deliberative democratic processes are most helpful when you have a wicked problem or a polarised community and you need to find ‘common ground’. At democracyCo we help citizens, community and stakeholders find an agreed way forward. Get in touch if you would like to find out more.