«Når man først spør, så forplikter man jo til å høre etter» En studie av lokalpolitikeres holdninger til borgerpanel

Abstract

In a time where political participation and democratic legitimacy are in decline, several countries and regions have taken to democratic innovations as a measure to reinvigorate their democracy. For democratic innovations to exercise the claimed utility assigned to them by literature, the acceptance and implementation of resulting recommendations by politicians is crucial. This thesis argues that the acceptance of politicians is a conditional factor for the success of democratic innovations, and therefore it is important to research how politicians view these innovations. For this reason, this thesis explores the following research question: How does local politicians in Bergen assess citizen juries, and how do they view and apply the recommendations from the jury? Based on previous empirical studies, I investigate whether the same findings can be observed in Bergen. The research question is explored through a case study of a citizens’ jury in Bergen held in 2018 (Bergen Byborgerpanel). To find out what the politicians thought about the citizens’ jury and to understand their arguments, a survey and several interviews were conducted. The results show an overall positive attitude towards citizens’ juries among the local politicians in Bergen, but it also showed that certain design elements of a citizens’ jury can influence whether the politicians are positive towards them or not. Furthermore, the thesis finds that despite the fact that the politicians largely hold a traditional view of democracy and were generally very skeptical of giving a citizens’ jury any decision-making power, they appear committed to finding new ways to include the citizens. Finally, I found that the jury's recommendations were listened to and emphasized in the decisions the politicians made on the issue afterwards. Together with previous findings in the field, this study will provide increased knowledge on how politicians consider democratic innovations and thus contribute to a more robust theoretical basis in the field around larger deliberative systems.