Emanating Effects: The Impact of the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review on Voters’ Political Efficacy
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321719852254 |
| Author | John Gastil,Katherine R Knobloch,Michael L Barthel |
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719852254
Political Studies
2020, Vol. 68(2) 426 –445
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0032321719852254
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
Emanating Effects: The Impact
of the Oregon Citizens’
Initiative Review on Voters’
Political Efficacy
Katherine R Knobloch1, Michael L Barthel2
and John Gastil3
Abstract
Deliberative processes can alter participants’ attitudes and behavior, but deliberative minipublics
connected to macro-level discourse may also influence the attitudes of non-participants. We
theorize that changes in political efficacy occur when non-participants become aware of a
minipublic and utilize its deliberative outputs in their decision making during an election. Statewide
survey data on the 2010 and 2012 Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Reviews tested the link between
awareness and use of the Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements and statewide changes in internal
and external political efficacy. Results from a longitudinal 2010 panel survey show that awareness
of the Citizens’ Initiative Reviews increases respondents’ external efficacy, whereas use of the
Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements on ballot measures increases respondents’ internal efficacy.
A cross-sectional 2012 survey found the same associations. Moreover, the 2010 survey showed
that greater exposure to—and confidence in—deliberative outputs was associated with higher
levels of both internal and external efficacy.
Keywords
deliberative democracy, external efficacy, initiative elections, internal efficacy, minipublics
Accepted: 1 May 2019
Across the globe, the past two decades have ushered in a succession of deliberative min-
ipublics—highly structured, face-to-face deliberative processes in which a representative
sample of the public engages in decision making connected to macro-level policymaking
1Department of Communication Studies, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
2University of Washington, Washington, DC, USA
3Department of Communication Arts and Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Corresponding author:
Katherine R Knobloch, Department of Communication Studies, Colorado State University, 1783 Campus
Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1783, USA.
Email: Katie.Knobloch@colostate.edu
852254PSX0010.1177/0032321719852254Political StudiesKnobloch et al.
research-article2019
Article
Knobloch et al. 427
(Gastil and Levine, 2005; Nabatchi, 2010; Nabatchi et al., 2012). Participation in these
events can cause lay citizens to change their opinions, increase their political knowledge,
alter their political efficacy, and heighten their political engagement (Boulianne, 2018;
Fishkin, 2009; Jacobs et al., 2009; Morrell, 2005; Nabatchi, 2010). Such salutary effects
on the participants, however, were not the principal aim of those who have advocated for
minipublics (Dahl, 1989; Fishkin, 1991; Fung, 2003; Gastil, 2000; Goodin and Dryzek,
2006; Grönlund et al., 2014). Rather, the point was to achieve more urgent macro-level
goals, such as forming broader policy consensuses, shifting public opinion, altering the
focus of media coverage, or bolstering the legitimacy of bona fide democratic
institutions.
In theory, the presence of deliberative minipublics could change the cognitions and
behaviors of the larger public—persons who did not directly participate but who were
aware of a minipublic’s structure, purpose, and outcomes. Minipublics are designed to
connect micro-level deliberation with macro-level discourse by incorporating their find-
ings into the wider political discussion (Goodin and Dryzek, 2006; Grönlund et al., 2014;
Parkinson, 2006; Warren and Gastil, 2015). Such processes may subsequently draw the
public into quasi-deliberation by providing them with better information, argument anal-
ysis, and considered recommendations. Those who are highly aware of minipublics and
their outcomes are, in a sense, themselves engaged in deliberation because they can incor-
porate these analyses into their internal reflections about those issues and their conversa-
tions (Goodin, 2000, 2003).
Thus, minipublics may shape the public’s civic attitudes in the same ways they influ-
ence the few who participate in them directly (Boulianne, 2018; Fung, 2003; Gastil et al.,
2017; Goodin and Dryzek, 2006; Knobloch and Gastil, 2015; Nabatchi, 2010). The estab-
lishment of inclusive minipublics may signal to the public the development of a more
legitimate and deliberative public sphere—a sign that governing officials are willing to
listen to public input and desire the public’s involvement in decision making (Boulianne,
2017; Parkinson, 2006). Furthermore, seeing fellow citizens competently perform the
tasks normally fulfilled by political professionals may increase the public’s confidence in
its own political capabilities.
Fortunately, the macro-level civic impact of minipublics has begun to receive empiri-
cal attention. Learning the findings of minipublics can affect policy judgments (Ingham
and Levin, 2018a, 2018b) and vote choice (Gastil et al., 2018). Shelley Boulianne (2017)
took this method a step further, finding that learning about a minipublic’s work influenced
respondents’ sense of government responsiveness. Our study extends this line of work,
asking how different types of exposure to a minipublic impact the efficacy of the elector-
ate it aims to represent.
This research assesses the potential for the Oregon (USA) Citizens’ Initiative Review
(CIR), one of the only institutionalized minipublics in existence, to have what we call an
“emanating effect” on the wider public’s political efficacy. We use this term to refer to a
minipublic’s ability to spread civic attitude change far beyond the minipublic’s partici-
pants to reach a wider public. Although the introduction of a minipublic into a crowded
public sphere may receive limited public attention (and thus have weak emanating
effects), measurement of any effects for those who do learn about them will help us better
understand the role of minipublics within the larger deliberative system. We begin by
theorizing this effect and then present the results of two large-sample surveys of the
Oregon public.
To continue reading
Request your trial