Power to the people? Investigating how New Zealand political elites view deliberative democracy

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).