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Deliberative Mini-publics for Social Movement:

A Case from Hong Kong

James Wong

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

(jameskalei@ust.hk)

15 August 2015

** To be presented at the ECPR Conference 2015 in Montréal **

Abstract: Deliberative mini-publics are often understood as institutional mechanisms for citizen participation

within the policy process. Whilst this interpretation largely corresponds to our empirical observations, it does not

yet cover all possible roles and functions of mini-publics. In fact, the use of mini-publics can be expanded beyond

the context of policy making, constituting part of a social movement. In this paper, I study a series of

‘deliberation days’ in Hong Kong’s civil society which paved the way to the Occupy Central Movement in Autumn

2014. I compare Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ with the typical mini-publics in terms of process and outcome. I

argue that, despite the unique design of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’, they largely satisfy the essential

desiderata for democratic institutions. This study sheds light on how micro-deliberation can be scaled up to make

macro influence on not only specific policy but also the public sphere at large.

1. Introduction

Deliberative mini-publics are examples of democratic innovations which aim to increase and deepen

citizen participation in the political decision-making process (Smith, 2009). These mini-publics, such as

citizens’ juries, planning cells, consensus conferences, deliberative polls and citizen assemblies, directly

engage representative samples of citizens for participation, enabling them to practise deliberation and

make decisions on some designated public or policy issues (Elstub and McLaverty, 2014). Such

micro-deliberation is increasingly popular for enhancing the legitimacy of the process and outcome of

public policy making.

In this paper, I suggest that the use of deliberative mini-publics is not confined to policy making but can

constitute an important component of a social movement. In particular, I study a series of ‘deliberation

days’ in the civil society of Hong Kong between 2013 and 2014 which paved the way to the Occupy

Central Movement (or the Umbrella Movement) in Autumn 2014. This paper is organized as follows. In

Section 2, I introduce the background of the Occupy Central Movement, the origins of Hong Kong’s

‘deliberation days’ and their roles in the Occupy Movement. In Section 3, I compare these ‘deliberation

days’ with the typical mini-publics in terms of process and outcome. In Section 4, I evaluate these

‘deliberation days’ on the basis of some essential goods for democratic institutions. In Section 5, I draw

a few concluding remarks on Hong Kong’s experience of mini-publics for social movement as well as

the general lessons learnt for scaling up micro-deliberation.

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2. Background

Occupy Central, also known as the Umbrella Movement, is a civil disobedience movement which

involves the occupation of major roads in Hong Kong between September 2014 and December 2014. It

was initiated as the ‘Occupy Central with Love and Peace’ (OCLP) campaign by Kin-man Chan,

Yiu-ming Chu and Benny Tai in March 2013. The primary purpose of the movement is to demand the

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government to offer a legislative proposal for the

Chief Executive Electoral System of 2017 which satisfies certain international standards for universal

suffrage.

A key focus of the debate is the nomination method for candidates. The HKSAR Government insisted

that the candidates must be selected by a ‘broadly representative’ nominating committee (currently

comprising 1,200 members from a variety of sectors). Officials from Beijing also declared that a

‘qualified’ HKSAR Chief Executive must satisfy the standard of loving both the country and Hong

Kong. The pro-democracy camp, on the other hand, contended that the benchmarks set out by the

HKSAR and Beijing Governments were meant to screen out ‘unfavourable’ candidates from running the

elections. This, as the democrats argued, would impose unreasonable restrictions on the right of certain

candidates to stand for elections, and hence violating the international standards for universal suffrage.

The OCLP idea was first mentioned in the Hong Kong Economic Journal on 16 January 2013 by Benny Tai

from the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He claimed that OCLP would constitute the

‘deadliest weapon’ which exerts pressure on the HKSAR Government to formulate a proposal for the

Chief Executive Electoral System that fulfils the expectation of genuine universal suffrage. It is worth

noting that the OCLP campaign did not see civil disobedience, i.e., the occupation of the central

business and financial district, as a necessary element, but merely a last resort, for the pursuit of genuine

universal suffrage. In other words, as long as the HKSAR Government agreed to propose a genuine

Chief Executive Electoral System, no occupation would be called for in the first place.

OCLP suggested that, before they called for civil disobedience, they must have exhausted other legal and

legitimate procedures, including deliberation and civil referendum. In particular, deliberation was

considered, for the very first instance, an effective instrument for driving institutional reforms in the

context of social movement. OCLP insisted that participants in their campaign should not be motivated

merely by instant, short-term sentiments or passions but should, instead, be committed to the values and

beliefs for genuine universal suffrage.

For such commitment to be possible, as OCLP saw it, there must be mechanisms which would enable

participants to equally express, discuss and reflect on some related ideas and issues as well as to make

decisions in a fair fashion. Only through such a democratic procedure could the desired commitment be

cultivated. Deliberation was even analogized to the ‘nuclear component’ of a nuclear weapon which,

when detonated, would release civic determination to destroy the hard-line position of the HKSAR and

the Beijing Governments regarding the Chief Executive Electoral System.

Subsequently, OCLP organized three ‘deliberation days’ on 9 June 2013 (‘DD-1’), between October 2013

and March 2014 (‘DD-2’) and on 6 May 2014 (‘DD-3’). DD-1 took place at the University of Hong

Kong, which aimed to come up with issues and problems about the OCLP campaign. DD-2 consisted

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of a plenary session on 9 March 2014 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (‘DD-2B’) plus a series

of preceding small-group sessions held by different civil society organizations between October 2013

and February 2014 (‘DD-2A’).

DD-2A aimed to formulate the key principles for the design of the Chief Executive Electoral System,

whilst DD-2B aimed to determine the agenda for DD-3 as well as the method and procedures for the

ensuing civic referendum. DD-3 took place at six different sites across the territory, which aimed to

select, for the civic referendum, three of the fifteen proposals from the civil society on the design of the

Chief Executive Electoral System. The three ‘deliberation days’ altogether constituted the early stages of

the OCLP campaign.

3. Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ and typical mini-publics

What are Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’? What are the similarities and differences between Hong

Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ and the typical mini-publics? In this section, I offer a comparative analysis of

Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’. I first compare the characteristics of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’

with those of the typical mini-publics. Then, I assess the design of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’

based on a set of desiderata associated with deliberative democracy.

By and large, deliberative mini-publics are regarded as democratic innovations that engage small groups

of ordinary citizens to deliberate on major issues. The key purpose of mini-publics is to survey

individual opinions before and/or after deliberation or to produce collective decisions (e.g., a consensus).

Participants are recruited by random or self selections who are usually remunerated (Fishkin and Luskin,

2000; Elstub, 2006; Elstub, 2014). Most mini-publics take no more than a few days, and they are

dissolved once the issues concerned have been deliberated and concluded (Dryzek, 2010).

Elstub (2014) compares the key features of various kinds of mini-publics, namely citizens’ juries (CJ),

consensus conferences (CC), planning cells (PC), deliberative polls (DP) and citizen assemblies (CA).

Based on a similar framework, I compare, as in Figure 1, the key features of the typical mini-publics and

Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’.

Typical mini-publics Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’

Number of citizens

CJ, CC: 10-26

CA: 103-160

PC, DP: 100-500

DD-1: 700

Supporters’ module: 600

Public module: 100

DD-2: 3,000 (A) / 2,000 (B)

DD-3: 3,000

Number of

meetings

DP: 2-3 days

CJ, PC: 4-5 days

CC: 7-8 days

CA: 20-30 days

DD-1: 0.5 day

DD-2: 0.5 day (2A) / 0.5 day (2B)

DD-3: 0.5 day

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Selection method CJ, PC, DP: Random selection

CC, CA: Random and self selections

DD-1:

Supporters’ module: Self

selection

Public module: Random

selection

DD-2: Self selection

DD-3: Self selection

Activities

CJ, PC, CC, DP: Information and

deliberation

CA: Information, consultation and

deliberation

Information and deliberation

Result

CJ, CC: Collective position report

DP: Survey opinions

PC: Survey opinions & collective

position report

CA: Detailed policy recommendation

DD-1:

Supporters’ module: Survey

opinions (small groups) and

experiences (plenary session)

Public module: Survey opinions

(plenary session and

questionnaires)

DD-2:

Survey opinions (voting, after 2A)

DD-3:

Survey opinions (voting)

Destinations of

proposals

CJ, PC, DP: Sponsor and mass media

CC: Parliament and mass media

CA: Government and public

referendum

OCLP website and mass media

(NB: Results from DD-3 for public

ratification in ensuing referendum)

Figure 1: Key features of various types of deliberative mini-publics (based on Elstub, 2014)

From Figure 1, we see that the three Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ are most similar to deliberative

polls. In terms of the number of participants, DD-1 engaged 700 citizens while DD-2 and DD-3 each

engaged up to 3,000 citizens. These figures of engagement are comparable to the number of citizens

involved in deliberative polls (i.e., up to 500 citizens), which speaks of a certain level of

representativeness. However, each session of the Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ lasted 0.5 day, which is

shorter than a session of deliberative polls (3-4 days).

Similarly to deliberative polls, participants in Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ were briefed with

information before the sessions began. A set of reference materials on the design of the Chief

Executive Electoral System was distributed to all participants one week before DD-1 for their perusal.

During the plenary session of DD-2 (2B), participants were presented with the voting outcomes

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following the conclusion of all small-group sessions (2A). In DD-3, participants were presented with a

number of proposals from the civil society regarding the design of the Chief Executive Electoral

System.

In terms of process, an obvious divergence between Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ and deliberative

polls would be the selection method for participants. While deliberative polls use random sampling

procedures (often without stratification), random selection was used for the public module of DD-1,

whereas for the supporters’ module of DD-1 and the other two sessions of ‘deliberation days’, the

procedures used were self-selecting – participants were recruited through political parties, civil society

organizations and/or advertisements. It is important to note that all participants, except those in the

public module of DD-1, were expected to sign the Manifesto of Occupy Central with Love and Peace,

signifying that they agreed with the three fundamental convictions of the OCLP campaign.1

In terms of deliberative outcome, individual opinions were surveyed in forms of reporting or sharing

during the plenary sessions, questionnaires and/or voting. The major difference between deliberative

polls and Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ would be that the former survey individual opinions before

and after deliberation and the changes of opinions are compared; whereas for the latter, only the public

module of DD-1 surveyed such opinion change through questionnaires. For the rest of the sessions of

‘deliberation days’ (including the supporters’ module of DD-1), they only surveyed individual opinions

either generally at the plenary sessions or through voting. Compared to the typical mini-publics,

participants in all sessions of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ were not asked to produce any collective

position reports or recommendations.

While the destinations of proposals are sponsors and the mass media for most of the typical

mini-publics, for Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’, the individual opinions surveyed were released to the

mass media as well as published on the website of OCLP. It is worth noting that the voting outcomes

from DD-3, which consisted of three proposals chosen for the design of the Chief Executive Electoral

Systems, became the only alternatives on the ballots in the ensuing civic referendum.

Mapping Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ to the sortal typology (Figure 2), we see that they are different

from citizen assemblies, consensus conferences and citizens’ juries in the sense that the former engaged

more than 100 participants and did not produce any common statement by the end of deliberation. The

outcomes of deliberation were, instead, surveyed individually, similarly to deliberative polls and planning

cells. Note, however, that there were no surveys of individual opinions for the supporters’ module of

DD-1 and the plenary session of DD-2.

1 The three fundamental convictions apply to persons who intend to participate in the campaign of OCLP: “(1) The electoral system of Hong Kong must satisfy the international standards in relation to universal suffrage. They consist of the political rights to equal number of vote, equal weight for each vote and no unreasonable restrictions on the right to stand for election. (2) The concrete proposal of the electoral system of Hong Kong should be decided by means of a democratic process, which should consist of deliberation and authorization by citizens. (3) Any act of the civil disobedience, which aims to fight for realizing a democratic universal and equal suffrage in Hong Kong, though illegal, has to be absolutely non-violent.”

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High number of participants (> 100 participants)

Common

statement

Citizen assemblies Deliberative polls

Planning cells

Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’

Individual

voting / survey

of individual

opinions Consensus conferences

Citizens’ juries

Low number of participants (< 30 participants)

Figure 2: Sortal typology (based on Elstub, 2014)

4. Desirability of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’

Smith (2009) identifies six essential goods for democratic institutions which can be used to evaluate the

desirability of deliberative mini-publics (and other democratic institutions). These goods concern the

democratic legitimacy and practical feasibility of deliberative mini-publics, namely, inclusiveness, popular

control, considered judgment, transparency, efficiency and transferability. To what extent are these goods

realized in Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’? I focus on the aspect of democratic legitimacy and offer

some preliminary assessments based on the first four essential goods.

4.1 Inclusiveness

The primary issue concerning the design of all kinds of democratic institutions is ‘constituting the

demos’ (Goodin, 2007). We ask who counts as eligible participants as well as how we select, from the

pool of eligible participants, those who will actually participate in the democratic institutions. The latter

question is particularly important for deliberative mini-publics where only small groups of citizens can

be involved. Given that, for each mini-public, there is a limit for the number of participants, it is crucial

to ensure that selection rules and procedures are fair in the first place.

What is a reasonable benchmark for fairness? Smith (2009) suggests that an inclusive democratic

institution should overcome unequal participation as far as possible. To realize inclusiveness, as he argues,

the institution in question should at least not systematically exclude any citizens from being present or

any kinds of opinions from being voiced.

For DD-1, the selection procedures were different for the two modules. For the supporters’ module, the

700 participants were recruited through political parties and civil society organizations, including

non-governmental organizations, professional associations, student unions and community and religious

groups. Potential participants were, as mentioned, requested to sign the Manifesto of Occupy Central

with Love and Peace in order to be accepted for deliberation. For the public module, the 100

participants were recruited through telephone random sampling (without stratification). These 100

participants were not requested to sign the Manifesto (Public Opinion Programme, 2013).

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A selection mechanism as that for the supporters’ module of DD-1 is highly self-selecting. Firstly, some

citizens are not members of any of the political parties or civil society organizations, or have any

connections with members of these parties/organizations. They may not be able to receive up-to-date

information about the event as well as how to sign up for it, even if they have the intention to

participate. Secondly, some citizens may hesitate to sign the Manifesto for a number of reasons. They

may simply want their opinions on the OCLP campaign to be heard without having to, in the first place,

commit themselves to the campaign. Some may still have doubts or questions about the campaign.

Others may in principle support the OCLP campaign but may wish to publicize their stance only after the

deliberation. As a result, citizens with relatively weak networks in civil society and less concrete stances

are systematically excluded from participating in the supporters’ module.

Strictly speaking, citizens who do not sign the Manifesto before DD-1 do not have an equal opportunity

to participate in the deliberation compared to those who do. For the former group of citizens, they are

able to participate in the deliberation only if they are selected from the telephone random sampling. In

other words, they cannot participate if they are not selected. However, for the latter group of citizens,

no (random) selection is in place, and they are able to participate as long as they are willing to do so. In

this way, while citizens within the first group have an equal probability of being selected to participate

(Brown, 2006; Sward, 2000), they have a much lower opportunity to participate compared to the second

group of citizens. Whether citizens sign the Manifesto is, therefore, a crucial factor that determines their

likelihood to be included for the deliberation. Taking the signature of the Manifesto as a concern, the

level of inclusiveness of DD-1 is limited.

For the subsequent sessions of the ‘deliberation days’, since participants were expected to sign the

Manifesto before registering to the plenary session of DD-2 (2B) or DD-3, the level of inclusiveness of

both sessions were still limited.2 As for the small-group sessions of DD-2 (2A), since they were held by

a variety of civil society organizations, citizens who are members of these organizations, or are

connected to any of these organizations/members, are more likely to be recruited.

Do citizens have an equal opportunity to determine the outputs from Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’?

For both modules of DD-1, participants in each discussion group were asked to come up with two most

important issues of the OCLP campaign. Each participant might contribute a maximum of two issues

to the agenda from which the group would then choose for the two most important issues. For the

supporters’ module, the outputs from all groups were collected and consolidated as ten most important

issues by the organizers and announced in the plenary session. On the other hand, for the public module,

a representative was nominated from each group to report the two most important issues in the plenary

session.

For DD-1, participants in the supporters’ module and those in the public module did not appear to have

an equal opportunity to determine the outputs. This is because the participants in the supporters’

module did not have an opportunity to report the decisions of their own groups in the plenary session. It is

possible that certain group decisions be eventually ignored, or at least not accurately reflected, when they

2 For DD-3, participates were requested to sign the Manifesto in order to vote for their preferred proposals after deliberation.

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are consolidated by the organizers. Therefore, the supporters’ module of DD-1 was not as inclusive as

the public module of DD-1.

For DD-2, all participants from the small-group sessions (2A) were invited to vote over a list of

principles for the design of the Chief Executive Electoral System. These principles were consolidated

from deliberation in the small-group sessions. As all participants were eligible to vote (given that they

have signed the Manifesto), they had an equal opportunity to determine the outputs from DD-2A. A

similar voting procedure was in place for DD-3, where all participants were invited to vote for their most

preferred proposal for the Chief Executive Electoral System (given, similarly, that they have signed the

Manifesto). The ‘one-person-one-vote’ arrangement largely satisfies the expectation of equal

opportunity to influence outputs, although the pre-requisite that participants would need to have signed

the Manifesto did, to a certain extent, compromise the level of inclusiveness.

4.2 Popular control

The second desideratum for democratic institutions is that citizens are empowered in the

decision-making process. Smith (2009) understands such empowerment of citizens as constituting two

dimensions. The first dimension is the (political) salience of the deliberative agenda, which concerns the

extent to which citizens are able to exercise effective control over agenda setting, or more specifically, the

selection of issues for deliberation. The second dimension is the extent of influence that participation

on the selected issues has on the deliberative decisions.

Agenda setting

For all sessions of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’, the agenda setting power largely lies in the

participants. For both modules of DD-1, participants were briefed, about a week beforehand, with a set

of reference materials consisting of balanced information and commentaries on the OCLP campaign. It

is worth noting that these commentaries included views for and against the campaign. Participants were

invited to suggest, at the first plenary session, topics for small group discussion, and participants in each

group were able to discuss any kinds of issues, as long as they are related to the potential problems for

the campaign. There were no specific, substantive issues that the organizers asked the participants to

deliberate on. The facilitators in small groups were expected not to intervene in the choice of issues for

discussion unless necessary (Public Opinion Programme, 2013).

For DD-2, similarly, no specific, substantive issues were assigned to the small groups for deliberation.

They were only asked to come up with essential principles for the design of the Chief Executive

Electoral System. For the plenary session, the agenda set out by the organizers was more specific,

including the agenda and decision procedures for DD-3 as well as the methods and procedures for the

ensuing civic referendum. For DD-3, the agenda consisted of 15 proposals for the Chief Executive

Electoral System from the civil society, selected by the organizers on the basis of their satisfaction of the

‘international electoral standards’. We can see that, in all the above deliberations, citizens’ power of

agenda setting was mostly on substantive issues, subject to the constraint of certain formal frameworks.

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Decision making

For DD-1, as mentioned, all groups were asked to come up with two most important issues of the

OCLP campaign. The decision in each group was made by either a consensus or a hand poll. In the

plenary sessions, there were no decisions made. All issues reported, from both the supporters’ and the

public modules, were published in the DD-1 Report and made available online for citizens’ perusal.

After the small-group sessions of DD-2 (2A) and DD-3, participants were invited to vote electronically

over, respectively, the essential principles for the design of the Chief Executive Electoral System and the

most preferred proposal for the Chief Executive Electoral System. The opportunity for participates to

vote after deliberation indicates that they did not only deliberate but were also empowered to influence

deliberative decisions. It is worth nothing that participants were required to sign the Manifesto in order

to vote in either occasion.

Although the deliberative decisions from Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ had no direct impact on the

government’s proposal for the Chief Executive Electoral System, the results of DD-2 (2A) – the

essential principles for the design of the Chief Executive Electoral System – served as a reference

framework for the civil society in formulating proposals for the Chief Executive Electoral System. In

addition, the results of DD-3 – the three most popular proposals for the Chief Executive Electoral

System – constituted the agenda for the ensuing civic referendum.

4.3 Considered judgment

Another desideratum for democratic institutions concerns whether the environment of deliberation is

structured to enable informed and reflective judgments (Smith, 2009). In this sense, a desirable

deliberative mini-public would be the one that enables citizens to base their decisions on well-deliberated

reasons rather than raw preferences, pre-existing knowledge or prejudices. Moreover, participants are

expected to “put themselves into others’ shoes” and understand the opinions of other participants with

different perspectives and experiences and with an ‘enlarged mentality’ (Smith, 2009).

For all Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’, five principles were devised for facilitators to uphold in all

small-group deliberations. These principles are: (1) Impartiality – to provide information without

expressing personal interest; (2) balance – to present balanced views; (3) engagement – to promote active

citizenship; (4) civil dialogue – to deliberate based on mutual respect; and (5) individual thinking – to let

citizens build their own deliberated opinions (Public Opinion Programme, 2013). Assuming that these

principles are actually observed during deliberations, it is likely that individuals are able to develop

opinions on the basis of mutual understanding and other-regarding reasons.

Whether participants develop other-regarding opinions is one thing, whether they submit decisions

which are consistent with these opinions is another. If the decision-making procedure is not open, such

as a secret ballot, individuals are incentivized by some strategic reasons to choose alternatives that are in

line with their own self-interest. While decisions were made by either a consensus or hand polls at the

end of small-group deliberations of DD-1, the electronic voting arrangements after DD-2 and DD-3

were particularly vulnerable to strategic decision making, regardless of whether individuals have had

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formulated informed and reflective opinions before. It is possible that how they vote might eventually

diverge from what they have considered and expressed during deliberation.

4.4 Transparency

Last but not least, a good deliberative institution should be transparent, meaning that the entire

proceedings are open to both participants and non-participants (Smith, 2009). If a mini-public is

transparent to its participants, they will have a clear idea about the conditions of deliberation and

decision making, which will reduce the suspicion of ‘co-option’ and build confidence in participants. If a

mini-public is transparent to non-participants, it will publicize information on its process and outcomes

to the wider public, which will hence enable the public to judge whether the democratic institutions and

outputs are legitimate and trustworthy (Smith, 2009).

By and large, the process and outcomes of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ were made transparent to

the participants. For DD-1, the programme run-downs and briefing materials were sent to participants a

week in advance for their perusal. In this way, participants could have an idea about what the conditions

of deliberation would be even before they were present for the event. For both plenary sessions of

DD-2 and DD-3, the agendas had been published in advance for the participants to decide whether or

not to register to the deliberations. It is worth noting that one of the items on the agenda of the plenary

session of DD-2 was to formulate the procedures for deliberation and voting in DD-3 (Public Opinion

Programme, 2013).3

The proceedings of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ were also publicized to the wider public. Apart

from press releases and official reports, deliberations in both plenary sessions and small groups were

video or sound recorded, and the recordings were then made available for the general public to access.

Some small-group deliberations were even broadcast live. For some groups, there were also seats

reserved for reporters and/or observers (who were, however, not supposed to participate in the

deliberations).4 Arguably, all these arrangements contribute to the transparency of the ‘deliberation

days’.

As a short conclusion, the design of the ‘deliberation days’ in Hong Kong, like that of the typical

mini-publics, largely satisfies some important desiderata for democratic institutions. Generally speaking,

all Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’ were transparent and, to some extent, inclusive, in which citizens

were empowered for agenda setting and decision making on the basis of considered judgment.

5. Lessons learnt from Hong Kong’s experience

What lessons can we learn from Hong Kong’s experience of ‘deliberation days’? As one kind of

democratic innovations, typical deliberative mini-publics, such as citizens’ juries, consensus conferences

and deliberative polls, have been used mainly for engaging citizens’ participation in the context of policy

3 For the small-group sessions of DD-2 (2A), it depends on whether the civil society organizations have informed their respective participants about the deliberative arrangements before the meetings. 4 Participants were informed by the event organizers/facilitates of the above arrangements before deliberation.

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making. One relevant question to ask would be, from this perspective, how mini-publics can be

institutionalized to realize the goods of a democratic process.

Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’, on the other hand, took place in a very different setting, which was

regarded as a means to putting pressure on the HKSAR and the Beijing Governments to realize genuine

universal suffrage for the Chief Executive elections. The deliberative mini-publics in Hong Kong, as a

result, constituted part of a social movement, rather than a public policy process. In that case, the

relevant questions to ask would, at least, include: (1) whether the mini-publics are designed to realize

democratic goods; and (2) how, if at all, the mini-publics enhance the legitimacy of the social movement

as well as the effectiveness of producing the desired social or institutional change. Addressing both

questions enables us to not only formulate a more comprehensive theory of democratic innovations but

also reflect on how we can scale up micro-deliberation to make macro influence in the public sphere.

Some subsidiary, though important, questions are also worth considering. First of all, should deliberative

mini-publics for social movement be incorporated a civic referendum for public authorization? Given

the limited number of citizens that can actually participate in mini-publics, the legitimacy of the

deliberative outputs lies not only in its transparency to the non-participants but also the endorsement

from the general public at large. Relevant questions would include: (1) What kind of deliberative outputs

should be subject to public authorization; (2) how the method and procedures for the civic referendum

should be; and (3) how much public authorization is sufficient in order to make the deliberative outputs

legitimate.

Another point of concern about deliberative mini-publics for social movement would be whether

participants should be selected on the basis of their support for the movement in the first place. As we

have seen, for most sessions of Hong Kong’s ‘deliberation days’, participants were requested by the

organizers to sign the OCLP Manifesto before the deliberations. For post-deliberation voting, as in

DD-2 and DD-3, having signed the Manifesto was even a pre-requisite for a ballot. The important

questions here would include: (1) whether participants should be asked to express written commitment

to the social movement in question before deliberation, and if so, what kind of commitment would be

justified; (2) how, if at all, it is possible to accommodate the voice of those citizens who remain

undecided as to whether to expressively commit themselves to the social movement in question; and (3)

finally, to what extent we can associate democratic deliberation with social movement and, more

specifically, law-breaking direct action.

References

Dryzek, J. (2010) Foundations and Frontiers of Deliberative Governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Elstub, S. (2006) A Double Edged Sword: The Increasing Diversity of Deliberative Democracy,

Contemporary Politics, 12: 3-4, 301-320.

Elstub, S. (2014) Mini-publics: Issues and Cases, in S. Elstub and P. McLaverty (ed.) Deliberative Democracy:

Issues and Cases, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 166-188.

Elstub, S. and P. McLaverty (2014) Introduction: Issues and Cases in Deliberative Democracy, in S.

Elstub and P. McLaverty (ed.) Deliberative Democracy: Issues and Cases, Edinburgh: Edinburgh

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