Deliberative forums in fragile contexts: Challenges from the field

Abstract

What does it actually take to run a deliberative mini-public (DMP)? This article unmasks the taken-for-granted assumptions of one of the most popular democratic innovations in the past decade by applying their design features in fragile political contexts. Drawing on 3 years of fieldwork in communities recovering from armed conflict and police brutality in the Philippines, we identify foundational challenges to DMPs in relation to their core design features: sortition and long-form deliberation. Our goal in documenting these challenges is not to devalue DMPs but to spotlight limitations that cannot be overcome despite the best intentions. In so doing, this article hopes to advance an honest conversation about what these DMPs can reasonably achieve, as well as the harms they can potentially cause, especially in societies where precarity is the norm rather than the exception.