The role of experts and expertise in practices of citizen engagement in climate policy: a comparative analysis of two contrasting cases

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2226349/v1

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The role of experts and expertise in practices of citizen engagement in climate policy: a comparative analysis of two contrasting cases

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2226349/v1

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published 03 Jan, 2024

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The need for engaging citizens in climate policymaking is increasingly recognised. Despite indications that the form of expert involvement can strongly shape the outcomes, this remains scarcely researched. We analysed two unique and contrasting cases of citizen engagement in national climate mitigation policy: 1) the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (ICA), the first national climate assembly involving live expert presentations and face-to-face deliberations; and 2) the Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) on Dutch climate policymaking, where more than 10,000 citizens compared policy options in an online environment based on expert-based information on policy effects. Taking a dramaturgical approach, we found that the opening-up and closing-down of policy options and perspectives was influenced by the setting, staging and scripting of expertise. The simple and online format of the PVE allows for opening-up towards a diverse set of normative perspectives, but a small set of policy options. In contrast, the deliberative setting of a climate assembly enables deliberation on a wider set of policy options, but a limited range of normative perspectives. Apart from providing information on policy options, experts had significant roles in design choices and formulating recommendations, which further shaped citizens’ deliberations and policy advice. Future research should further investigate the role of experts and expertise across a wider range of practices. Nevertheless, we conclude that the high degree of required technical knowledge in climate mitigation policy naturally implies a strong influence of expert involvement, which concomitantly steers the results. Alternatively, we may search to enhance citizens’ engagement in guiding climate policymakers focusing on citizens’ normative perspectives.

climate policy

citizen participation

expertise

citizens’ assembly

mini-public

participatory value evaluation

Many countries have formulated ambitious mid-century emissions targets to achieve the Paris Agreement's objective to limit global mean temperature to well-below 2^oC and preferably 1.5^oC degrees. Policymakers are therefore challenged with developing concrete national climate mitigation plans. Traditionally, climate mitigation policy is strongly informed by expert-based analysis of possible policy pathways, most notably model-based scenarios. However, given the far-reaching consequences of these policies, it is increasingly recognised that citizen engagement is crucial to ensure that newly implemented polices are socially just, acceptable and effective (Wüstenhagen et al. 2007; Langer et al. 2017; Batel 2020). Against this backdrop, a diverse range of citizen engagement initiatives in climate and energy policy have emerged over the past decade (OECD 2017; Chilvers et al. 2021; Galende-Sánchez and Sorman 2021).

This paper is concerned with the meaning and role of expertise given the recent advance of citizen engagement practices such as deliberative mini-publics like national climate assemblies (Willis et al. 2022). At first glance, citizen engagement may seem to counteract the traditional powerful roles of experts in climate policymaking, which has been widely criticised for devolving political questions into technical ones and favouring techno-economic solution orientations (Demeritt 2001; Beck and Oomen 2021; cf. Fischer 1990). One of the promises of participatory processes is their capacity to ‘open up’ (Stirling 2008) towards wider polices and perspectives which experts and policymakers may overlook, alluding to citizens’ value diversity, local knowledge and creative capacity to identify policy options (Fiorino 1990; Stirling 2008; Pesch et al. 2017). At the same time, access to specialised knowledge is broadly recognised as an essential ingredient of participation in complex environmental policy issues such as climate change (Reed 2008; Brown 2014; Lightbody and Roberts 2019).

However, expert involvement across citizen engagement practices is highly diverse and there is little scholarly agreement on what form this should take (Lightbody and Roberts 2019). While empirical work on deliberative mini-publics on climate change reveals that expert involvement improves citizens’ understanding, experts can also ‘close-down’ citizens’ deliberations by imposing issue framings or forceful communication of policy options (Blue 2015; Courant 2020; Muradova et al. 2020; Elstub et al. 2021). Despite the apparently crucial role of experts and expertise, the dynamics of expertise in citizen engagement practices in climate policy has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. We therefore aim at better understanding how expertise is mobilised across such practices. In line with Stirling (2008), we do not argue that closing-down is problematic, as closure is “necessary, inevitable and desirable” (p. 284), arguably especially regarding the urgent need for decisive climate action. Nor do we argue that expert analysis leads by definition to closing-down and participation to opening-up (Stirling 2008). Rather, we are interested in how the opening-up and closing-down unfolds in interactions between citizens and experts about possible futures.

This research intends to answer the following research question: How does the mobilisation of expertise shape dynamics of opening-up and closing-down of policy options and perspectives in practices that engage citizens in climate mitigation policy? We compare two cases that both involved citizens in national climate policymaking, with contrasting formats of mobilising expertise: the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (ICA) on climate change, a deliberative mini-public where a randomly selected group of citizens are informed through live expert presentations, and the Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE), a relatively new citizen engagement method recently applied to Dutch national climate policy, in which citizens evaluate and compare policy options based on expert-based information in an online environment (see section 4 for theoretical, methodological and practical arguments for our case study selection). In the following sections, we first review theoretical understandings and empirical insights into the role of experts and expertise in citizen engagement in climate policy (section 2), which informs our analytical approach to the analysis (section 3). After explaining our methodology (section 4), we first introduce both cases (section 5) before reporting our results (section 6 and 7). In section 8, we discuss the limitations of our research and the theoretical and policy implications of our findings.

Specialised knowledge is widely recognised as an essential ingredient of public participation in complex environmental policy issues, in order to deepen citizens’ understanding and support informed dialogue (Reed 2008, Brown 2014, Lightbody and Roberts 2019). A lack of engagement with scientific and technical expertise can easily result in ‘negotiated nonsense’ (Van de Riet 2003). Expert involvement has been theorized in-depth, most notably in deliberative democracy literature (e.g. Habermas 1996, Fisher 2000). However, within this debate scholars fundamentally disagree on the meaning of expertise and the desired roles of experts (Brown 2014, Roberts et al. 2020). A realist view of expertise regards ‘factual truths’ as a way to empower disadvantaged groups to form reasoned arguments (Knops 2006, Brown 2014). In contrast, a constructivist view disregards this ‘knowledge deficit’ model, arguing that citizens have relevant experiential and contextual knowledge which are relevant for policymaking in their own right (Bulkeley 2000, Fischer 2000). For instance, wind farm developers benefit from citizens’ knowledge regarding their local area (Jami and Walsh 2017). The constructivist view tends to favour reciprocal expert-citizen interactions where citizens are empowered to share their knowledge and critically scrutinise expert claims (Fischer 2000, Brown 2014, Roberts et al. 2020).

Empirical work on deliberative mini-publics initiated to engage with climate change issues indeed finds improved understanding and shifts in citizens’ policy preferences as a result of information provision (Muradova et al. 2020, Elstub et al. 2021).^[1] However, expert involvement is also prone to several challenges that may compromise the fairness and effectiveness of participatory processes (Roberts et al. 2020). For instance, issue framing by experts during citizen engagement processes can undermine citizens’ plurality of views (Blue 2015). This may not be intentional. Scientific understandings are never neutral representations, but are inseparable from conceptions of social order (Jasanoff 2004). Moreover, experts are often positioned in a privileged spot where communication is reduced to a Q&A format, leaving little room for citizens to critically scrutinise experts’ claims (Brown 2014, Roberts et al. 2020). As Brian Wynne has persuasively argued, prioritizing scientific expertise over social forms of knowledge blurs the “cultural/hermeneutic character of scientific knowledge itself” and “seriously constrains the imagination of new forms of order and of how their social legitimation may be better founded.” (Wynne, 1996, p. 45). Although these studies suggest that expert involvement influence citizen engagement processes in diverse ways, empirical work on this issue remains scarce (Brown 2014, Lightbody and Roberts 2019, Muradova et al. 2020).

^[1] Empirical work on the role of information on opinion shifts in deliberative mini-publics in general show contrasting results: where some find opinion shifts were influenced more strongly by information rather than deliberation (e.g. Goodin and Niemeyer, 2003), others find the opposite result (e.g. O’Malley, Farrell and Suiter, 2020)

Two premises underpin our analysis. First, we view citizen engagement processes as ‘arenas’ in which citizens and experts discursively engage in opening-up and closing down policy options and perspectives (cf. Rydin 2007). We analyse how the ‘possibility space’ takes shape throughout both cases, understood here as ‘the range of possible perspectives, solution orientations and policy options aimed at mitigating climate change that are discursively ‘opened-up’ or closed-down’ by various actors’. Second, in policymaking contexts, the credibility of experts is not pre-given but continuously negotiated depending on the specific institutional context and normative definitions of what constitutes expertise. As such, our focus in this paper is on the politics of expertise: the dynamic, complex and implicit processes through which expertise is negotiated within a specific setting (Fischer 1990; Jasanoff 1990; Wynne, 1987). We base our analysis on the “governance as performance” framework developed by Hajer (2009) to analyse how actors gain authority in mediatised policy and decision processes. We apply this framework of dramaturgical analysis through three elements: scripting, staging and setting. Scripting, involves determining the specific roles and appropriate behaviour of the actors involved (Hajer 2009), in our case the scripted roles of experts and citizens throughout different phases of each process. As argued by Hajer (2009), scripts may also be challenged or disrupted by opposing actors, proposing ‘counter-scripts’, which we also attend to in our analysis. Staging involves the specific organisation and sequence of events of the interaction between actors (Hajer 2009). In our analysis we attend to how experts are introduced and how they communicate with citizens. The setting refers to the physical and organisational setting where the interaction takes place (Hajer 2009). For instance, Hajer and Pelzer, (2018) indicate that the emergence of a shared ‘imaginary’ of large scale deployment of offshore wind on the North Sea was facilitated by the shared experience of this future via an immersive floor projection as side-event of formal EU meetings.

Our case study selection was based on theoretical, methodological and pragmatic arguments (Seawright and Gerring, 2008). The first and foremost theoretical argument for selecting the cases was their contrasting forms of expert involvement: a climate assembly involving live expert presentations, Q&A and small-group deliberations (ICA) vs. an online tool where citizens compare policy options based on expert-based information on policy effects (PVE). A theoretical argument for selecting the PVE was its similarity with model-based scenarios - i.e. participants select an optimal mix of policy options based on their costs and effectiveness to reach a specified emissions target - which constitute the primary form of expertise underlying climate mitigation policy. The PVE was also selected for pragmatic reasons: author 1 and 2 were personally involved in the development of the PVE application on Dutch climate policymaking, which enabled insights into the design process and access to data. Where author 2 coordinated the PVE content, author 1 provided assistance in its design and took a more critical and reflexive stance, closely observing the design of the PVE and interviewing involved stakeholders afterwards. We recognise that this critical stance may not counteract potential biases in our results. However, we argue the implications of this bias is limited considering that our comparison is descriptive rather than evaluative. The ICA was selected among national climate assemblies because it serves as a key example providing empirical support for deliberative democracy theory given their political outcomes through multiple successful referenda (Courant 2021, Devaney et al. 2019, Farrell and Suiter 2019). A pragmatic argument to select the ICA was data availability, being a well-documented compared to more recently emerging climate assemblies. A methodological argument for selecting both cases was their similarity in their goal and scope, i.e. informing climate mitigation policy on the national level. We recognise that our cases might not be representative of other climate assemblies and PVE applications and therefore compare our results to other cases in section 8.

The comparative analysis was based on a range of quantitative and qualitative methods. The ICA was analysed through document analysis (academic literature, evaluation reports and policy documents), 12 semi-structured interviews with involved actors (Assembly members, the Secretariat, expert witnesses, the Expert Advisory group and observers) to scrutinise their views on the role of experts and expertise during the preparations and assembly meetings (Supplementary Information A), a quantitative survey derived from researchers studying the ICA (Farrell et al., 2017, Supplementary Information G) including questions regarding citizens’ perspectives on the information provision and an analysis of open access video material ^[2] of expert presentations, Q&A sessions and voting to gain insights into the setting and staging of experts and expertise during assembly meetings. The PVE was analysed through document analysis (literature on previous PVE applications and grey literature such as policy reports and policy briefs on this PVE case), personal observations during the design by author 1 including expert meetings, and PVE participant responses on preferred policy options, arguments underlying their preferences and responses to a survey incorporated in the PVE design involving evaluative questions ^[3], as well as three semi-structured interviews with policymakers and policy advisors regarding their views on the use of PVE insights ^[4].

[2] This material is available on YouTube and is accessed between January 2022 and November 2022 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DgyetL9aUTMry_F9B9yUw

[3] The quantitative analysis of preferred policy options of all PVE participants and the qualitative analysis of 2000 of the participants’ open questions regarding their arguments for and against policy options as well as the open evaluative questions was performed by a group of 14 researchers including author 1 and 2. The findings are reported in a Dutch report which is used as key reference in our results (Mouter et al. 2021d)

[4] We recognize that 3 interviews may not capture the diversity of stakeholders’ views. However these were used to obtain some provisional insights into policy outcomes of the PVE which was not the core interest of our comparison and is only used in the case description (section 5.2). See also Supplementary Information A

In this section we provide a general background and overview of the cases (overview in Table 1 and Figure 1).

5.1 Case 1: the Irish Citizens’ Assembly on climate change

Although efforts to make democracy more deliberative and inclusive date back to the 1970s, Ireland is considered a pioneer of democratic innovations for two reasons: first, it is the first country where multiple nation-wide citizens’ assemblies were held successively and second, the assemblies produced major political outcomes in the form of multiple successful referendums (Farrell et al. 2019, Courant 2021). The ICA (2016-2018) followed from two earlier citizen engagement initiatives in Ireland: 1) the We the Citizens project (2009), involving seven public meetings, enabled citizens to share ideas against the backdrop of declining trust in the government and the economic crisis and 2) the Convention on the Constitution (2012-2014), a ‘pilot’ citizen assembly in which involving 66 randomly selected citizens and 33 politicians, resulting in two successful referendums on marriage equality and blasphemy (Farrell and Suiter 2019). This success raised optimism for citizens’ assemblies to address other politically divisive issues. In July 2016, the ICA was approved by the Houses of the Oireachtas, consisting of 99 randomly selected citizens and a chair person (a retired Supreme Court judge) to discuss five topics over the course of 12 weekends. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution (concerning abortion) was the first and most intensively discussed issue, which resulted in a successful referendum. As such, Ireland’s success has provided empirical support for the theoretical underpinnings of deliberative democracy, serving as a best practice example of tackling societal problems democratically (Suteu 2015, Dryzek et al. 2019, Courant 2021).

Climate change was not included in the initial draft but was added by an amendment of the Green Party (Farrell et al. 2019, Harris 2021). Ireland was ahead of the curve in using the citizen assembly format on a national level to address climate change (Devaney et al., 2020). The country had been known as a ‘climate laggard’ for many years, with the 2017 National Mitigation Plan being highly criticised for lack of ambition (Torney and O’Gorman 2019). Whereas climate change would initially be addressed as the last out of the five topics, Assembly members voted to move it to the second topic and devote two weekends to it instead of one (Courant 2020). The Assembly was tasked with the following policy question: “How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change”. Over the course of two weekends in the fall of 2017, the Assembly members engaged in an iterative process of listening to expert presentations, roundtable discussions in small groups and Q&A, culminating in a Ballot Paper that the Assembly members voted upon (see Figure 1). Prior to citizens’ deliberations, the organizers also invited the wider Irish society to submit ideas or proposals for the Assembly to consider (The Citizens’ Assembly 2018). A total of 1,205 submissions were received by advocacy groups, experts and citizens of which 1,185 were published on the website. Assembly members received a synthesis of these publications as well as short papers of each expert witness to consider beforehand.

The ICA on climate change resulted in 13 climate policy recommendations including a more general call to put climate change at the centre of climate policy as well as sectoral policy recommendations across energy, transport and agriculture (The Citizens’ Assembly, 2018, Supplementary Information B for an overview), which were far more radical than many expected (Devaney et al. 2019, Torney and O’Gorman 2019). An all-party parliamentary committee was established that would consider the recommendations and to assess how this may inform Ireland’s National Mitigation Plan and National Energy and Climate Plan. In their final report, this committee endorsed most of the Assembly’s recommendations (Joint Committee on Climate Action 2019). A notable exception was the controversial introduction of a tax on GHG emissions from agriculture (Devaney et al. 2019). Nevertheless, the 2019 Climate Action Plan and its amendment in 2021 reflected several of the Assembly’s policy recommendations, including a microgeneration support scheme, the allocation of tax revenue for retrofitting homes and expanding public transport, walking and cycling infrastructure (Supplementary Information D). As noted by involved experts, the Assembly also more generally “drove up the narrative” for ambitious climate policy (interview 2, expert witness).

5.2 Case 2: the Participatory Value Evaluation on Dutch national climate mitigation policy

The Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) is a relatively new citizen engagement method that was recently applied to involve citizens in Dutch national climate policymaking (Mouter et al. 2021d). The PVE enables large groups of citizens to advise policymakers on a public problem in an online environment, involving a range of policy options and their effects as well as a particular constraint, usually a public budget and a policy target. This way, citizens ‘step in the shoes’ of policymakers and experience complex policy choices and trade-offs that the government faces (Mouter et al., 2022). The PVE was explicitly designed to resolve several limitations of the traditional cost-benefit analysis (Mouter et al. 2021b). The PVE method has recently been applied to a range of policy issues in the Netherlands across different governance levels, including relaxation of national COVID-19 measures (Mouter et al. 2021a), urban mobility investments (Mouter et al. 2021b) and the energy transition on local and regional levels (Mouter et al. 2021c, Itten and Mouter 2022). Participants in a PVE usually spend 20-30 minutes evaluating policy options. Because of the low participation barriers, the PVE enables the participation of large groups of citizens (e.g. 30,000 in the case of COVID-19 measures), including groups that are normally difficult to reach such as young people (Mouter et al. 2021c).

In our specific case, the PVE methodology was applied to enable Dutch citizens to evaluate climate mitigation options. Following the EU Green Deal, the Netherlands strengthened its national emission reduction target from 49% to 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Meanwhile, members of the House of Representatives filed motions to improve engagement with societal stakeholders and citizens, particularly in climate and energy policy. Inspired by previous successes, PVE researchers initiated its application to national climate policymaking. The PVE was accessible online through a website link open to all Dutch citizens. To ensure representativeness, citizens were also randomly selected based on a demographic criteria by a market research company using an existing participant panel (hereafter called ‘open PVE’ and ‘PVE panel’), resulting in a total of 10,810 participants. Figure 3b shows the online environment in which PVE participants could evaluate 10 policy options across five mitigation sectors such as a meat tax, building off-shore wind parks and electric vehicle subsidies (see also Supplementary Information B). Citizens could indicate the extent to which they would advise each policy option in addition to existing policies, ranging from ‘no extra effort’ to ‘strong extra effort’ using a slider. When moving the sliders, citizens received real-time information on the amount budget spent and to what extent the emissions reduction target was achieved. Clicking on a policy options revealed information on costs, effectiveness and other policy effects.

As illustrated in Figure 1, participants first received an introduction text and video about the PVE, climate change and EU and national climate policy prior to their evaluation and selection of preferred policy options. After their selection, citizens could provide written arguments for or against policy options and could suggest alternative ideas and policy options in an open question. Citizens also filled in a survey to evaluate the PVE. The choices in the design of the PVE, most notably the selection of policy options, were made by PVE researchers (author 1 and 2), in close collaboration with policymakers and policy advisors (see 7.2.1 and Supplementary Information E for details). The PVE researchers also consulted external experts for feedback on the general information and information on each policy option. Furthermore, several pilot sessions were held with citizens to assess and improve the understandability and sufficiency of the information. The preferred set of policy options that citizens selected were aggregated, resulting in a percentage of citizens that are for or against each policy option (Mouter et al. 2021d). The PVE researchers also collected all written arguments for and against each policy option and performed a qualitative analysis to derive at four key most often recurring principles for public support for ambitious climate policy: 1) policies that personally affect citizens are only acceptable if climate measures to large polluters are visually taken, 2) protect citizens with lower incomes, 3) the polluter pays and 4) benefits of policy options should outweigh the costs. A sample of the additional ideas and policy proposals that citizens proposed were also included in the report. As of fall 2022, policy outcomes of the PVE are less clear, but the four key principles were highlighted in various media (Supplementary Information E for timeline), reflected in policy debates (interview 13, 14) and used by lobbyists (interview 15). The report was published on the official website and presented in a webinar to Members of Parliament and handed over to the coordinator of the National Climate Agreement. This coordinator presented it to the Minister of Economics and Climate in an official letter and commented that the report was “highly relevant to politics”. PVE researchers also presented the results to members of Parliament.

Table 1. Overview of characteristics of both cases

[insert Table 1]

Fig 1. Schematic overview of the phases of both cases

[insert Figure 1]

In the following sections, we first present a reconstruction of the processes of opening-up and closing-down of climate policy options in the ICA and PVE throughout the different phases (section 6), followed by a detailed dramaturgical analysis of how the setting, scripting and staging of expertise in each case and shaped these dynamics of opening-up and closing-down (section 7).

As schematically illustrated in Figure 2, we observed that in both cases the possibility space was gradually closed down in both cases by various actors throughout the phases, yet in contrasting ways. The ICA was tasked with the broad policy goal of how to make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change. In contrast, PVE participants were faced with a much narrower framing, namely how the Netherlands could cut 55% emissions by 2030 compared to 1990, which already shaped the types of policies that were relevant. In both the ICA and PVE, the possibility space was further shaped by the design of the program structure, including the choice to focus on specific mitigation sectors (interview 8, Mouter et al. 2021d). A stark difference between the cases is that where PVE participants could only choose between 10 policy options that were preselected by PVE researchers in consultation with policymakers and experts, expert witnesses in the ICA identified approximately 60 policy options (see supplementary data)^[5]. Despite the limited set of options, participants in the PVE could freely propose policy suggestions in an open question after their comparison, resulting in radical policy proposals such as giving legal rights to nature and decreasing child benefits (Mouter et al. 2021d). However, these suggestions were not included in the summary of the report - hence indicated as a dotted line in Figure 2. In contrast, although citizens in the ICA were able to propose alternative policy options beyond the ones presented by experts, in practice, all citizens’ sectoral recommendations reflected policy proposals suggested by one or multiple experts (supplementary data, see also Muradova, Walker and Colli, 2020). All 13 recommendations on the ballot reached a majority of votes. In fact, the level of consensus on climate change was the highest across all five topics (at least 80%) that the Assembly considered (Devaney et al. 2019). In the PVE, citizens’ preferences were aggregated resulting in 7 policy options that were preferred by most participants (50%< in both open and sample PVE, Supplementary Information B). The four key principles that PVE researchers distilled from citizens’ arguments for and against policy options (see section 5.2) constituted the main policy recommendations highlighted as key conclusions in the report.

Fig. 2 Schematic illustration of the processes of opening-up and closing-down of the possibility space in both cases

[insert Figure 2]

[5] Policy options that were provided textually by experts in their papers and slides or orally during their presentations were counted. This is an estimated number of policy options, taking into account the possibility of double counting.

In this section we compare how the scripted roles of experts (7.1) and the particular setting and staging of expertise (7.2) affected the dynamics of opening-up and closing-down.

7.1 Scripted roles of experts in the ICA and PVE

ICA

In the ICA, the policy question was first defined by the Houses of the Oireachtas. A Secretariat consisting of civil servants was assigned to develop the work programme, oversee the process and write the final report. The ICA involved two types of experts, each with different scripted roles: 1) expert witnesses that would provide presentations and answer questions during the information phase, and 2) an Expert Advisory Group (EAG) consisting of six experts that assisted the Secretariat in designing the program, selecting expert witnesses and assisted Assembly members in formulating recommendations. Citizens could provide feedback on the information programme during its design. Nevertheless, design choices by the EAG and Secretariat such as the focus on specific sectors influenced citizens’ deliberative space:

“There wasn’t that holistic looking at the system that would contribute to the climate crisis. It looked just at different sectors. […] There was just a very narrow lens and there wasn’t room for creativity, innovation or radical alternatives” (interview 11, Assembly Member).

Despite the complexity of the topic, Assembly members found the provided information understandable, balanced and of high quality (Farrell et al., 2017, Supplementary Information G). However, both experts and citizens found two weekends limited given its complexity (interview 3, 4, 7,8). Due to time limitations, only a small set of experts could be involved for each sector and therefore inevitably the expertise of individual experts largely shaped the outcomes:

“citizens have limited time to be informed or to get informed. Inevitably who you ask to do the informing does have an influence on the outcomes.” (interview 2, expert witness).

“[the recommendations] very much reflected the information that we had been told.” (interview 11).

The 15 expert witnesses included 9 academics and researchers from other scientific institutes and governmental agencies as well as 6 ‘advocates championing low-carbon transitions’ such as a representative of local energy community initiative and a social enterprise tackling food waste (Devaney, Torney, et al., 2019, p. 6). Although citizens could propose expert witnesses, some of which were indeed invited (interview 8, Secretary), the majority of expert witnesses were selected by the EAG using a number of criteria (The Citizens’ Assembly 2018). Moreover, although the expert witnesses tried to act as ‘honest brokers’ providing a range of policy options (see supplementary data file), they sometimes stepped out of this role and acted as ‘issue advocates’, strongly advocating for specific policy options (cf. Pielke, 2007). Examples of issue advocates include a highly respected economist who strongly emphasised carbon taxation in his presentation (interview 2, 7, EAG members) and a mobility expert who strongly argued for investment in public transport during a Q&A session (video Q&A session 1, September 30^th 2017). Our interviews and analysis of proposed policy options suggest that options that were either strongly advocated by experts or presented by multiple experts were likely to end up in citizens’ recommendations (Supplementary Information C), which is in line with earlier empirical research on the ICA (Muradova et al. 2020).

During the drafting of the ballot paper, the designated role of the EAG was to assist citizens in the technical feasibility of policy options when drafting the questions (The Citizens’ Assembly 2018). Assembly members could propose initial suggestions of topics in the first weekend, followed by iterative drafts and feedback by Assembly members. This iterative process would ensure that citizens ‘took ownership of the ballot’ (Ibid.). However, our interviews suggested that experts had a significant role in drafting the recommendations:

“It was certainly a collaboration between the citizens and the Expert Advisory Group but I would say the Expert Advisory Group raised the bulk of the recommendations that were voted upon in reality.” (interview 10, EAG member)

According to this EAG member, citizens would not have the necessary background to come up with well-worded questions and the EAG tried to find a balance between ‘sensible questions’ and ‘testing the edges of acceptability’ (interview 10).

PVE

The PVE also involved two types of experts with different scripted roles: 1) a team of PVE researchers (led by author 2), who coordinated the PVE design and developed the report and 2) external experts who provided feedback on the design and the information on policy options. Designing the content and parameters of the PVE, including defining the quantitative target, government budget constraints, policy options and the information on policy effects (such as costs, effectiveness, health and biodiversity) involved an iterative process between PVE researchers, policymakers and policy advisors and external experts to ensure both policy relevance and credibility (see Supplementary Information E for a timeline). The selection of the final 10 policy options was further informed by five mitigation sectors in the Netherlands (CBS, 2020) as well as a special government report on the effectiveness of policy options to achieve the 55% emissions targets (Van Geest, 2021). Where experts involved in the design of the ICA were only implicitly framing citizens’ deliberations, PVE researchers shaped the possibility space both implicitly - through framing of relevant mitigation sectors and policy effects - as well as more explicitly by selecting a small set of policy options. Out of the 2000 analysed open questions regarding participants’ evaluation of the PVE, the most often mentioned negative aspect was the limited range of options (N=148), commenting for instance that they were “steering too much”. Apart from the design, PVE researchers also had a significant role in formulating policy recommendations. Out of all alternative policy options that citizens identified, the researchers selected a small sample to be presented in the final report (Mouter et al. 2021d). The selection was aimed to show policy makers the creative capacity of citizens to identify ‘out-of-the box’ proposals. Moreover, the PVE researchers also aggregated citizens’ preferences into percentages of support for each policy option and analysed 2000 of participants’ responses to identify recurring arguments for and against policy options which they synthesised into key guiding principles (Mouter et al. 2021d). In other words, PVE researchers essentially closed-down the diverse perspectives and value orientations of more than 10.000 citizens into four key principles underlying societal support for ambitious climate policy.

7.2 Setting and staging of expertise in the ICA and PVE

ICA

The ICA took place in the formal setting of a conference room, enabling two-way face-to-face interactions between experts and citizens. When experts spoke, they stood on a pedestal with a microphone and citizens were placed at small roundtables (Figure 3a). During expert presentations, this setting cast citizens as passive recipients of knowledge provided by experts. Although citizens could ask questions during the Q&A sessions, the experts were still on the podium. This privileged position of experts may have hampered citizens’ ability to critically scrutinize expert claims and introduce alternative policy options to those experts suggested in their presentations. Although citizens occasionally introduced alternative policy options, such as incentivising seaweed production as an alternative to animal protein, citizens predominantly asked experts for clarification (videos of Q&A sessions of first weekend). As an expert witness noted: “citizens didn't come up with their own ideas” (interview 6). This physical and organisational setting seemed to create an unequal power balance between experts and citizens, which inclined Assembly members to ask experts what to propose:

"a lot of the time, we were sort of asking the experts: tell us what to advise, we don't know enough on this. Please tell us what recommendations we need to make because you are the experts and we are complete novices to this." (interview 11, Assembly members).

This tendency of citizens may have been enhanced through the particular staging of expertise, as the Chair introduced expert witnesses as ‘explainers’ of causes and solution orientations of climate change, highlighting their leading positions in authoritative scientific institutes and policy councils (opening speech and introduction of experts by Chair in videos and transcript).

PVE

In contrast to the ICA, in the PVE the setting was an individualised engagement with an online interactive tool where citizens evaluated a small set of policy options towards a quantified emissions target and a constrained budget presented on the screen (see Figure 3b). An instruction text and video provided a basic understanding of climate science as well as quantitative and qualitative policy effects. This relatively simple format allowed large groups of citizens to participate. Among 2000 responses of participants, the most often mentioned positive aspects of the PVE were its the understandable and clear information (N = 277) and its accessibility (N = 270)^[6]. On the other hand, the format allows for only a small set of policy options to be evaluated, which strongly predefines the possibility space. The rigid format of a quantified emissions target and budget constraints further forecloses alternative problem framings as well as policy options that are difficult to quantify. The online format also prevents counter-scripting by citizens, who are faced with the choice to either participate and select among the 10 policy options or not participate at all. Moreover, the expert-based information on policy effects were presented as non-negotiable facts, e.g. ‘building off-shore wind creates job opportunities’, ‘road pricing will reduce commuting time and improve reliability’, with links to several authoritative reports such as those by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). This fact-like presentation of expertise and absence of a personified expert created a form of ‘mechanical objectivity’ which is a key mechanism through which authority of expertise is enacted (Hilgartner 2000). This mechanical objectivity masked the explicit choices that PVE researchers made in selecting policy options and judgments of relevant policy effects.

Fig. 3 Setting of the ICA (a) and the PVE (b).

[insert Figure 3]

[6] Percentages were not calculated given many empty responses

In this section we reflect upon the theoretical and practical implications of our two key findings (8.1 and 8.2) and propose recommendations for future research and practices of citizen engagement (8.3).

8.1 Experts’ Prominent Roles In Shaping The Outcomes Of Citizen Engagement Practices

A key finding of our research was that in both cases, experts largely shaped the actual citizen engagement. Experts not only provided information, but made critical design choices which framed citizens’ deliberations and had significant roles in formulating the recommendations that were the result. This finding is in line with other national climate assemblies and PVE cases. Our particular finding that citizens’ recommendations largely reflected proposals by expert witnesses who sometimes forcefully communicate specific options, is in line with earlier empirical work on the Irish and French citizens’ assemblies on climate change (Courant 2020; Muradova et al. 2020; Giraudet et al. 2022) but it contrasts findings of the UK climate assembly, in which expert information was only marginally discussed during citizens’ deliberations (Elstub et al. 2021). Most national climate assemblies so far also involve an Expert Advisory Panel or alike that makes design choices and assists citizens in formulating ballot questions (see KNOCA 2022 for overview). Earlier empirical work on expert involvement in deliberative mini-publics already stressed the critical role of such a panel (Lightbody and Roberts 2019; Roberts et al. 2020). Although the PVE case is the only case applied to national climate policy so far, our findings also conform other PVE applications on other topics, where PVE researchers typically preselect policy options in collaboration with policymakers and also formulate key policy recommendations based on the quantitative and qualitative data (see e.g. Mouter, Hernandez and Itten, 2021; Mouter, Shortall, et al., 2021). One exception is a case on a regional energy strategy which combined the PVE with a deliberative mini-public, where citizens could both define the policy options included in the PVE and formulate policy recommendations (Itten and Mouter, 2022).

Altogether, it can be concluded that experts significantly shape the outcomes of citizen engagement practices in national climate mitigation policy. This may not necessarily be problematic. In deliberative theory, if a shift in citizens’ deliberations occurs as a result of an engagement with experts and expertise this is seen as a desirable outcome to empower citizens to develop more informed opinions. Nor is it necessarily intentional: when inviting an economist, the suggestion of a carbon tax is simply the result of this particular expertise. It becomes problematic however, if policy recommendations are presented as citizens’ own identified ideas whereas in reality these reflected experts’ proposals. Our findings thus reiterate that the strong involvement of experts makes citizen engagement processes susceptible to manipulation (Böker and Elstub, 2015; Roberts et al., 2020). Moreover, our findings call into question the promise of citizen engagement practices to ‘open-up’ policy options that experts and policymakers may overlook (cf. Fiorino, 1990; Stirling, 2008). According to Stirling (2008) closing-down means “to assist incumbent policy-making actors [by] highlighting a single course or a very small set of possible courses of action” (ibid, p. 278–279) as opposed to opening-up which aims at “revealing how alternative reasonable courses of action appear preferable under different […] contexts, public values, disciplinary perspectives, and stakeholder interests” (ibid, p. 280). Both dynamics where at play in our case studies. In both the PVE and ICA we observed a closing-down towards a small set of recommendations. On the other hand, despite the small set of preselected policy options, the PVE opened-up new normative principles that Dutch policymakers were not fully aware of, such as that public acceptance depends on the visibility of measures to heavy fossil industries (interview 13–15). Likewise, despite the small set of recommendations in the ICA - which is somewhat surprising given that national climate assemblies in Spain and France resulted in a much larger number of policy proposals - some of the recommendations were highly controversial rather than assisting incumbent interests. In other words, it matters what is opened-up (policy options or normative perspectives) and compared to what (e.g. incumbent policymakers or experts’ identified possible policy options).

8.2 Dramaturgies Of Expertise And Dynamics Of Opening-up And Closing-down

A second key finding of our comparative analysis was that the particular setting, staging and scripting of experts and expertise affected the dynamics of opening-up and closing-down policy options and perspectives. Whereas the setting of an online tool enabled only a small number of policy options to be evaluated, the accessible and simple format allowed a large number of citizens to participate. This enabled insights into a broad range of perspectives on climate policymaking across diverse groups in society (cf. Mouter, Shortall, et al., 2021). In contrast, the deliberative setting of a citizens’ assembly enables a much larger set of policy options to be discussed, yet a less diverse range of perspectives due to the limited number of citizens that can be involved. The dynamics of opening-up and closing-down were further influenced by the scripted roles of experts. Where in the PVE experts most significantly shaped the possibility space during the design by preselecting policy options, in the ICA their influence was arguably the strongest towards the end where the Expert Advisory Group (EAG) drafted ballot questions. In other words, it not only matters what is opened-up (policy options or normative perspectives), but also by whom (experts or citizens) and when (in what phase of the process). In Fig. 4, we illustrate four different scripted roles of experts, where the process either reflects a dynamic of opening-up or closing-down policy options and where citizens either express normative perspectives or identify policy options.

‘the honest broker’: the ICA most closely reflected the dramaturgy of the ‘honest broker’ (Pielke 2007), where experts first identify policy options and effects. Citizens then close-down towards a smaller set of options that they consider desirable based on their normative perspectives. This is essentially what happened during the information phase in the ICA (see Fig. 2). Key benefits are the large range of options that can be scrutinised and insights in policy options that are both credible (as judged by experts) as well as desirable (according to citizens). However, citizens’ creative capacity to identify policy options remains underused. Moreover, experts’ framing can foreclose more radical ideas and policy options and citizens are susceptible to forceful communication of policy options by individual experts, especially if the setting and staging emphasises unequal power balances.
‘the bullshit filter’: in contrast, citizens may identify policy options first and experts may become involved in a later stage as ‘bullshit filter’ to assess which policy options are technically and legally feasible. This role was most prominent in the ICA, where experts only included ‘sensible’ questions on the ballot paper. This way, citizens’ creative capacity is empowered, the risk of experts’ framing is reduced and infeasible options are filtered out, which improves the credibility and potential uptake of citizens’ recommendations in policymaking. However, it may be challenging for citizens to identify policy options from scratch, without any information about existing and potential future policies. Experts may also be too conservative in filtering out options that they deem irrelevant.
‘the inspirator’: alternatively, experts may be involved as ‘inspirators’. Instead of proposing specific policy options (as in the honest broker), experts provide a number of general principles or orientations that help citizens to brainstorm ideas. In some way, the PVE implicitly reflected this role, as the 10 policy options could be viewed as an inspiration for participants to suggest alternative options (see the dotted line in Fig. 2). This role was more explicit in Austria’s national climate assembly, where experts provided a number of ‘leverage points’ for citizens to brainstorm on policy options (KNOCA 2022). This reduces the risk of experts’ forceful communication of policy options, empowers citizens’ creative capacity and creates space for more radical policy options. However, it can result in policy options that are controversial or are not technically or legally feasible, which might hamper their uptake in climate policy.
‘the preselector’: a fourth role might be that of a ‘preselector’, where experts first select a small number of policy options and citizens provide a diverse set of normative perspectives on the desirability of these options. This most closely reflects the role of experts in the PVE case. A key benefit is that by preselecting policy options, it provides insights into the desirability of policy options that policymakers are interested in and are therefore likely to be considered in policymaking. However, it strongly narrows down citizens’ discursive space, their creative capacity remains underused and it forecloses more radical policy options.

Figure 4. Ideal types of expert roles and dynamics of opening-up and closing-down

[insert Fig. 4]

8.3 An Agenda For Future Research And Practices Of Citizen Engagement

Given that we only studied two cases, our findings may be influenced by a bias in case study selection. Although our findings are in line with other climate assemblies and PVE cases, earlier research emphasizes that the form of expert involvement across participatory practices is highly diverse (Lightbody and Roberts 2019). It is therefore recommended that future research studies more cases across a more diverse set of citizen engagement practices in climate policy. What is more, in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the role of experts, future research should not only focus on the information phase, since experts can have diverse roles across multiple phases. Moreover, understanding how experts influence citizens’ recommendations involves not only what type of experts and what evidence is presented, but also how expertise is communicated (cf. Muradova, Walker and Colli, 2020), how expertise is staged and the particular setting in which expert-citizen interactions unfold. We recommend that future research further investigates the effects of different setting, staging and scripting of experts and expertise affects citizens’ deliberations and recommendations through dramaturgical analysis.

Our research also revealed some practical considerations for organizers of citizen engagement practices. First and foremost, organisers of citizen engagement initiatives should carefully consider the goal of engaging citizens (e.g. identifying normative perspectives or policy options) and adjust the appropriate format of providing expertise (e.g. deliberative or online) as well as the scripted roles of experts accordingly (see section 8.2). Given the complexity and required technical knowledge in climate mitigation policy, it may not be realistic to expect that citizens identify and formulate specific policy proposals. The strength of engaging citizens might be their diverse normative perspectives, in contrast to a local and more tangible policy issue where citizens have factual knowledge about their local area. Apart from the governance level, the goal of citizen engagement practices may also be dependent on the policy stage: e.g. identifying policy options during agenda-setting and normative perspectives during implementation (cf. Wells et al. 2021). Secondly, a more honest and equal staging of expertise can improve the fairness of citizen engagement processes. In a deliberative setting, experts could physically be put in a less privileged spot, allowing for a more interactive and equal dialogue (cf. Roberts et al., 2020; Elstub et al., 2021). In online formats such as online tools, experts should be transparent about value-based choices and uncertainties. Third, citizens could be tasked with a narrower topic. Focusing on a specific mitigation sector for instance, allows for the inclusion of a larger number and more diverse types of experts on this topic, which reduces the influence of views of individual experts (cf. Lightbody and Roberts, 2019). A narrower topic may also be more tangible for citizens and might be less likely to cognitively overload them, which can support their creative capacity to identify policy options. Fourth, to limit the exclusionary expert framing, citizens’ agency in the selection of experts and expertise could be enhanced (cf. Roberts et al. 2020; Itten and Mouter 2022). A key risk however, is that relevant forms of expertise or solution orientations are excluded from the process and only publicly known experts become involved.

In this study, we compared two contrasting cases of citizen engagement in climate policymaking to better understand the role of experts and expertise. In both cases, citizens’ recommendations largely reflected experts’ proposals of possible policy options. Experts were not only involved in providing information but had diverse and critical roles in design choices and formulating recommendations. Future research should further investigate the role of experts and expertise across a larger number of cases and a wider variety of practices. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that the complexity of national climate mitigation policy and the required technical knowledge necessarily implies a significant role of experts. We found that the particular setting, staging and scripting of experts and expertise can result in different dynamics of opening-up and closing-down. Our findings suggest that where a citizens’ assembly allows for a larger range of policy options to be scrutinised, the PVE produced insights into more diverse normative perspectives. The dynamics of the possibility space is further shaped by the particular scripted roles of experts and staging of expertise. Organisers of citizen engagement processes should therefore carefully consider what should be opened-up (policy options or normative perspectives), by whom (citizens or experts) and how (scripted roles and staging of expertise). This may depend on the scale, complexity and stage of the policy issue.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all interviewees for their valuable time and insights. We thank the research team involved in developing the Participatory Value Evaluation on Dutch climate policymaking, in particular Annemarie de Ruijter, Jose Ignacio Hernandez, Schoutje Schouten, Linde van Noord and Shannon Spruijt. We also thank participants of the Science and Democracy Network seminar in June 2022 as well as Ruth Lightbody for their suggestions on how to improve this research. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable time and comments.

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Tables 1 is available in the Supplementary Files section.

Table1PVEICA.jpg
Table 1. Overview of characteristics of both cases
SupplementaryInformationPVEICA.docx

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The role of experts and expertise in practices of citizen engagement in climate policy: a comparative analysis of two contrasting cases

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Abstract

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1) Introduction

2) Experts And Expertise In Citizen Engagement Practices: Theoretical Understandings And Empirical Insights

3) Analytical Approach To Analysing Expert-citizen Interactions

4) Case Study Selection And Methodology

5) Introduction To The Cases

6) Comparison Of Dynamics Of Opening Up And Closing Down The Possibility Space

7) Comparison Of Scripting, Setting And Staging Of Expertise

8) Discussion

8.1 Experts’ Prominent Roles In Shaping The Outcomes Of Citizen Engagement Practices

8.2 Dramaturgies Of Expertise And Dynamics Of Opening-up And Closing-down

8.3 An Agenda For Future Research And Practices Of Citizen Engagement

9) Conclusion

Declarations

Acknowledgements

References

Tables

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