We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
The last decade has seen a marked interest in deliberative citizen assemblies. Ideally, such bodies allow ordinary citizens to engage in rational deliberation over pressing political issues. However, they often lack significant influence on policymaking or electoral politics, a criticism leveled at James Fishkin's National Issues Convention (Fishkin 1995; Gastil 2000: 131, 135). The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (CA) is an important institutional innovation precisely because it exercised considerable political influence. Its participants judged which electoral system would best suit the Province of British Columbia, whose citizens could then accept or reject the recommended system in a provincial referendum.
In doing so, the CA engaged in two forms of political influence. First, they set the agenda for a binding, province-wide referendum, by voting to select a modified version of the single transferable vote (STV; see page 130) over the German-style mixed member proportional representation system (MMP; see page 130). In choosing STV, the Assembly did not make a binding decision for the province. But because their choice was to be ratified through a Yes or No vote, they set a very narrow agenda for the BC electorate, and agenda-setting is a pretty significant form of political power (Dahl 1989: 112–14; Riker 1982). But beyond agenda-setting, participants in the CA also exercised political influence in recommending the STV to the broader BC populace. On a micro-level, individual participants tried to persuade their fellow citizens that the STV was the best system for the province.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.