Are everyday citizens competent deliberators?

18 June 2024 | A conversation with Prof Simon Niemeyer and Prof Daniel Kübler
For Daniel Kübler, the role of citizen competence in democracy is a controversial issue. Empirical studies find that citizen incompetence is astonishingly widespread but crucially depends on elite cues in public debates related to decision-making processes. A realistic approach thus needs to acknowledge the context in which citizen participation and deliberation take place and understand how this context fosters (or does not foster) citizen competence.
Meanwhile, for Simon Niemeyer, the longstanding debate concerning everyday citizen competence draws on outdated models of individual rationality applied to a problematic democratic stage. If we instead understand human deliberative capabilities as evolved in dynamic group settings a dramatically different picture emerges - one that exposes deep injustice, in terms how we understand citizen competence and how that failure in many democratic traditions has served to undermine it.
This event is part 5 of a 10-part seminar series on 10 Big Questions on Deliberative Democracy convened by Dr Adele Webb.
This seminar was chaired by Dr Lucy J Parry.
Speakers
Simon Niemeyer is a Professor and co-founder of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His research in deliberative democracy includes conceptualising the nature of deliberative reason and understanding the conditions that support it.
Daniel Kübler is a Professor of Political Science and co-directs the Center for Democracy Studies at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research focuses, among others, on citizens’ opinion formation in direct democratic voting, as well as on participation in citizen assemblies.
Moderator
Lucy J Parry is a Research Associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance.
Seminar Convener: Adele Webb
Online floor manager: Ferdinand Sanchez
All Centre seminars are recorded. To access the recording of our seminar series and other events, visit our CZcams channel.