When reality strikes: Opinion changes among citizens and politicians during a deliberation on school closures

Abstract

This article reports on deliberation between citizens and politicians in a citizens’ forum about closing small schools and building a school center in a Finnish municipality. This real-world policy issue was highly contested at the time of the deliberation. The purpose of the study was to analyze both the magnitude of opinion changes and potential opinion convergence between citizens and politicians. The citizens’ forum used an experimental design whereby half of the groups engaged in discussion under the guidance of a facilitator with discussion rules, and the other half of the groups had no facilitation or rules. The analyses test how potential opinion changes are mediated by how deliberators experience discussion quality and moderated by the type of participant (citizen or politician). The findings show that opinion changes, both regarding magnitude and convergence, are not uniform for politicians and citizens. Moreover, this study shows how different layers of opinions may be affected differently by deliberation.