Partisanship and citizen deliberation

Deliberative mini-publics are controlled experiments where randomly selected lay citizens discuss political questions under specific discussions rules. These rules emphasize reason-giving, mutual respect and reflection, and trained moderators facilitate the discussion. People who take part in deliberation, change opinions and gain knowledge as a result. So far, the impact of political partisanship has not been studied systemically. Thus, this chapter compares participants in a deliberative mini-public in Finland according to their level of partisanship. Party members and people who identify themselves with a political party are compared with people with no party identity. Contrary to the hypotheses, the results show no statistically significant differences between the groups in relation to opinion change, knowledge gains or speech activity.