Evaluating Deliberative Democratic Designs

Theory of Change and Citizens' Assembly Pilot in Lebanon

Tan, M; (2021)

Evaluating Deliberative Democratic Designs: Theory of Change and Citizens' Assembly Pilot in Lebanon.

As democratic nations suffer from a lack of responsiveness and democratic deficits, there is a need for a better democratic process. One possible solution is incorporating deliberative democratic designs. Deliberative designs are based on deliberation and consensus-making rather than traditional preference aggregation and voting. However, evaluating deliberative designs is often challenging because of the conflicts between theory and practice. Furthermore, most evaluation frameworks are case-specific and cannot be used for comparative analysis. The essay seeks to address this problem by creating a framework based on the Theory of Change and applying the framework to a citizens’ assembly pilot in Lebanon. The resulting framework aims to be flexible, transferable, and comparative and tries to accommodate the gap between theories and practices.

 

Read the paper