Deliberative Mini-Publics: Involving Citizens in the Democratic Process

Kimmo Groenlund is professor of political science at Abo Akademi and director of the Social Science Research Institute (Samforsk). He is Deputy Director of the Centre of Excellence, Democracy - A Citizen Perspective (D:CE). His main research interests are participatory democracy, deliberative democracy, political knowledge, political behaviour, public opinion and elections. His current research projects include: Deliberation Within and Across Enclaves (2011-2015), funded by the Academy of Finland, and Democracy: A Citizen Perspective (2006-2014), funded by Abo Akademi Foundation. Andre Bachtiger is currently Research Professor of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Lucerne's Institute of Political Science. His research focuses on the challenges of mapping and measuring deliberation as well as understanding the preconditions and outcomes of high-quality deliberation in the context of representative institutions and of mini-publics. Maija Setala is Professor of Political Science at the University of Turku. She specialises in democratic theory, political trust, direct democracy and democratic innovation and has published a number of articles and books on these topics. Recently, Setala has applied experimental methods in collaboration with a group of researchers organising field experiments on citizen deliberation.