Making policy information relevant to citizens: a model of deliberative mini-publics, applied to the Citizens’ Initiative Review

Research on deliberative mini-publics has neglected two topics: the information on which deliberation is based, and communication techniques by which mini-publics convey their findings to the public. This article sheds light on those two topics, by showing that a criterion for evaluating information – intersubjective relevance – structures information within mini-publics and information that mini-publics share with the wider public. The article explains how information satisfying that criterion can foster intersubjectivity, deliberation and desirable outcomes of deliberation. The article proposes a theoretical model to explain those associations, and presents evidence from the Citizens’ Initiative Review, lending support for the model.