The Development of Democratic Attitudes and Civic Virtues in a Deliberative Mini-Public

Mikko Värttö; Maija Jäske; Kaisa Herne; Kimmo Grönlund

doi:10.4324/9781003463443-12

The Development of Democratic Attitudes and Civic Virtues in a Deliberative Mini-Public

Mikko Värttö^*
, Maija Jäske
, Kaisa Herne
, Kimmo Grönlund

^*Corresponding author for this work

Political Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding › Chapter › Scientific › peer-review

Abstract

We study the development of democratic attitudes and civic
virtues in a deliberative mini-public (DMP). By democratic attitudes, we refer to support for different forms of democratic participation, such as taking part in a DMP, giving feedback to public service providers, or voting in a local referendum. By civic virtues, we refer to important skills for political participation, such as political knowledge, political effcacy, political trust, and preparedness for collective action. We contribute to the existing literature
by introducing results from a controlled experiment in which citizens were
randomly assigned into Citizens only or Mixed discussion groups, enabling
to draw conclusions on the impacts of mixed-member deliberation. Our results show that among all participants, support for deliberative democracy,
user democracy, and external political effcacy increased. Internal political
effcacy increased when the item was formulated to concern local democracy. An important conclusion from including politicians in DMPs is that we
did not see a more positive development of civic virtues in the groups with
only citizen participants. Therefore, we can conclude that from a civic virtue
perspective, the involvement of politicians in a mini-public has no negative
impact

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Citizen Participation in Sustainable Urban Development
Subtitle of host publication	A Framework for Engagement from the Nordics
Editors	Tuomas Ahola, Nina Tura, Ville Ojanen, Agnar Johansen
Publisher	Routledge
Chapter	10
Pages	144-158
Number of pages	15
ISBN (Electronic)	9781003463443
ISBN (Print)	9781032732787, 9781032730271
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003463443-12
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2025
MoE publication type	A3 Part of a book or another research book

Funding

This research was supported by Åbo Akademi University Foundation, funding for the “Future of Democracy” Center of Excellence in Public Opinion Research; The City of Turku; Turku Urban Research Programme; Strategic Research Council within the Research Council of Finland (decision numbers 345950/345951, 358426/358428, 365618, and 365619); and the Research Council of Finland (decision number 341373).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
SDG 13 Climate Action
SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals

Keywords

Deliberation
Deliberative mini-public
experimental design
Survey
Turku
civic virtues
Democracy

Access to Document

10.4324/9781003463443-12Licence: CC BY

Cite this

Värttö, M., Jäske, M., Herne, K., & Grönlund, K. (2025). The Development of Democratic Attitudes and Civic Virtues in a Deliberative Mini-Public. In T. Ahola, N. Tura, V. Ojanen, & A. Johansen (Eds.), Citizen Participation in Sustainable Urban Development: A Framework for Engagement from the Nordics (pp. 144-158). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003463443-12

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abstract = "We study the development of democratic attitudes and civic virtues in a deliberative mini-public (DMP). By democratic attitudes, we refer to support for different forms of democratic participation, such as taking part in a DMP, giving feedback to public service providers, or voting in a local referendum. By civic virtues, we refer to important skills for political participation, such as political knowledge, political effcacy, political trust, and preparedness for collective action. We contribute to the existing literature by introducing results from a controlled experiment in which citizens were randomly assigned into Citizens only or Mixed discussion groups, enabling to draw conclusions on the impacts of mixed-member deliberation. Our results show that among all participants, support for deliberative democracy, user democracy, and external political effcacy increased. Internal political effcacy increased when the item was formulated to concern local democracy. An important conclusion from including politicians in DMPs is that we did not see a more positive development of civic virtues in the groups with only citizen participants. Therefore, we can conclude that from a civic virtue perspective, the involvement of politicians in a mini-public has no negative impact",

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The Development of Democratic Attitudes and Civic Virtues in a Deliberative Mini-Public. / Värttö, Mikko; Jäske, Maija; Herne, Kaisa et al.
Citizen Participation in Sustainable Urban Development: A Framework for Engagement from the Nordics. ed. / Tuomas Ahola; Nina Tura; Ville Ojanen; Agnar Johansen. Routledge, 2025. p. 144-158.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding › Chapter › Scientific › peer-review

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The Development of Democratic Attitudes and Civic Virtues in a Deliberative Mini-Public

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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Cite this