Deliberative Polling^®: China

The Deliberative Polling^® project in Zeguo township, Wenling City, allowed a scientific sample of ordinary citizens of China to deliberate about which infrastructure projects would be funded in the coming year.

The local government needed deliberative and consultative meetings to reduce conflicts of interest, reduce any perception of corruption, and provide a channel for citizens and interest groups to express their concerns about municipal construction projects. It is the first example of what we hope will be a broader research program applying Deliberative Polling® in a Chinese context.

• Public Consultation through Deliberation in China: the First Chinese Deliberative Poll, James S. Fishkin, Baogang He and Alice Siu
• Deliberative Democracy in an Unlikely Place: Deliberative Polling in China, James S. Fishkin, Baogang He, Robert C. Luskin and Alice Siu
• A Fruitful Exploration of Developing Local Democracy. The Zeguo experiment was endorsed by the Central Party School in Beijing.

Press

• China's new intelligentsia, Prospect Magazine, 2/2008 PDF
• It's Their Call: Using a Stanford professor's polling technique, Chinese Communist Party officials are giving citizens a voice in decision making, Stanford Magazine, 1/2006
• Deliberative Polling Experiment Produces Lively Debate on Local Democracy , China Development Brief, 7/2005
• Power to the People, China Economic Review, 6/2005
• China's New Frontiers: Tests of Democracy and Dissent, New York Times, 5/2005
• Dabbling in Democracy: No one knew what to expect when a Chinese town tried listening to its people, TIME Magazine Asia, 5/2005