James S. Fishkin, Baogang He, Robert C. Luskin and Alice Siu British Journal of Political Science PDF
The dataset was given to us by the Zeguo Township Government. PDF
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.
On health care, the most notable result was that the percentage believing the Regione should “convert some of its beds into other resources that make the structures more efficient” went from 45% before deliberation to 62%. PDF
Regione Lazio asked a representative sample of the population to get informed and discuss health care and financial investment ethics. The result: at the end of the discussion, they knew much more about both issues and their opinion changed.
James S. Fishkin, Baogang He and Alice Siu PDF
The Deliberative Poll in Zeguo Township, Wenling City, China, is the first to our knowledge that was conducted by the government itself and then actually implemented as a way of making public policy. We believe it is the first case in modern times of fully representative and deliberative participatory budgeting. It harks back to a form of democracy quite different from modern western style party competition – Ancient Athens.
