Abstract:
In light of the ‘democratic deficit’ said to be faced by many Western democracies, the topic of
democratic innovation has garnered broad interest from academics and practitioners alike (Dryzek
& Niemeyer, 2019). Of these democratic innovations, deliberative democracy arguably constitutes
the most active area of political theory in its entirety and is experiencing a surge of use
internationally, in a trend called the ‘deliberative wave’ (OECD, 2020). Central to deliberative
democracy are elite political actors – politicians and high-level advisors or policymakers - who,
because of their ‘disproportionate power and influence’, play an imperative role in the process of
innovating democracy (Diamond, 1999, p. 66). However, these political elites and their role in
deliberative democracy is critically understudied. This thesis investigates how New Zealand
political elites view deliberative democracy – an innovation that has not yet been used by New
Zealand’s central government. This study adopts a multimethod qualitative analysis approach,
conducting 15 independent interviews with New Zealand political elites, supplemented by
document analysis of primary data from Hansard parliamentary debates, Beehive press releases,
official government and political party websites and media interviews. Findings indicate that New
Zealand political elites’ views of deliberative democracy can be broadly described as cautiously
optimistic. Elites’ views are optimistic, sceptical and pragmatic in nature, informed by normative,
instrumental and epistemic reasoning. While some of the study’s findings resonate with existing
international research, the thesis adds significant value and original contributions to both
scholarship and practice by addressing the gap in the literature on both New Zealand’s engagement
with deliberative democracy and political elites’ views on deliberative democracy. Synthesising
this thesis’ findings, the argument is then made that the analysis of elites’ views suggests that
ultimately there is potential for a trial deliberative process to take place in New Zealand and more
research should be undertaken aligning with the empirical turn of deliberative theory (Rosenburg,
2005).