Can a Citizens’ Jury serve as a trusted source of voter information in the context of a government-initiated (top-down) referendum? Several studies show that Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) enhances voters’ knowledge and capacity of judgement in a ballot initiative processes. However, similar procedures have not been tested outside the U.S. or in the context of top-down government-initiated referendums. Maija Setälä and her colleagues studied a Citizens’ Jury on Referendum Options organized in the municipality of Korsholm in Finland in 2019. Even though the referendum concerned a contested municipal merger, they found that the Jury participants were nonetheless satisfied with the deliberative process and found it impartial. Furthermore; a large majority of voters had read the statement and thought it was a useful and trustworthy source of information. They also fount that reading the statement increased trust in the jury, factual knowledge, issue efficacy and perspective-taking.

In this talk Robert Talisse draws from his new book, Overdoing Democracy, presenting recent findings on political polarization. Although common analyses recommend that the way to address with polarization is to encourage citizens and politicians to “reach across the aisle,” data show that this strategy frequently backfires, escalating rather than easing partisan hostility. Offering an alternative approach, Talisse argues that polarization is a result of the near total infiltration of political allegiances and identities into our social lives. Today, our everyday activities are increasingly fused with our political profiles: commercial spaces, workplaces, professions, schools, churches, sports teams, and even public parks now tend to embody a particular political valence. When politics is permitted to saturate our social environments, we impair the capacities we need in order to enact democracy well. In a slogan, when we overdo democracy in this way, we undermine it. The solution is to build venues and activities where people can engage in cooperative activities together in which their political identities are neither bolstered nor suppressed, but simply beside the point. If we want to do democracy well, we need to put politics in its right place.