The Genre of Deliberative Guidance: Rhetoric and Deliberation in Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements

Abstract

During the last decade, the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) has offered an innovative design to incorporate citizen deliberation into ballot initiative elections, using a citizens’ jury process to evaluate evidence and write an advisory CIR Statement on the measure for public engagement. This analysis turns attention to the Statements, and applying genre analysis, identifies an emerging genre of deliberative guidance. We argue that the genre of deliberative guidance invites readers to engage in a hermeneutic process of interpretation and decision making on ballot measures. We identify three components of the genre, offering evaluation and insights for deliberative design and practice.