Time: Friday, 29 October 2021 at 13:00–14:15 EEST (UTC+3).
Place: Zoom
During the past decade, and the past few years in particular, there has been a growing interest in deliberative mini-publics, largely because of their capacity for dealing with complex and polarising issues like climate change. Mini-publics, which can manifest as processes such as Citizens’ Panels and Assemblies, convene randomly selected groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations for solving multifaceted public issues.
Although the so-called deliberative wave has been growing around the world, deliberative processes have been used cautiously in Finnish policy-making. Two government-sponsored Citizens’ Panels were organized in 2021, one on freedom of speech in the context of the OECD Civic Space Scan of Finland, and one on national climate policies. However, there are many questions regarding the potential roles of deliberative processes in Finnish politics, such as how they contribute to decision-making and their impact on public discourse.
During this event, Claudia Chwalisz, who leads the OECD’s work on innovative citizen participation, will present the findings of the OECD research on the deliberative wave, as well as a new OECD paper on how public deliberation is being institutionalised to become a permanent part of the democratic system. She will be joined by Maija Setälä (University of Turku), who will discuss the role of mini-publics from the Finnish perspective and cover some examples of recent deliberative processes in Finland. These presentations will be followed by comments from Katju Holkeri (Ministry of Finance) and Hannu-Pekka Ikäheimo (Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra). The event will be chaired by Kaisa Herne (University of Tampere).
Materials
The recording of the event was available until 13 November 2021.
Presentation (Chwalisz): OECD research on the deliberative wave and the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy (pdf)
Presentation (Setälä): Is there need for deliberative mini-publics in Finland? (pdf)
Programme
Times are local Finnish time, time zone Eastern European Summer Time EEST (UTC+3).
13.00 Opening words
Kaisa Herne, Tampere University
13.05 OECD research on the deliberative wave and the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy
Claudia Chwalisz, OECD
13.35–13.50 Is there need for deliberative mini-publics in Finland?
Maija Setälä, University of Turku
13.50–14.00 Comments
Katju Holkeri, Ministry of Finance
Hannu-Pekka Ikäheimo, Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA
14.00–14.15 Responses & open discussion
Registration
The event is free of charge and open to everyone interested in the topic, but requires prior registration.
Please register here: https://www.utu.fi/en/news/events/where-is-finland-on-the-deliberative-wave.
A Zoom link will be provided upon registering for the event.
Organiser
The event is part of the PALO (Participation in Long-Term Decision-Making) research project that analyses problems of practices of long-term decision-making. With the objective to strengthen democracy, PALO develops better practices for deliberative citizen participation. The consortium partners are the University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, the Natural Resources Institute Finland and the University of Tampere. The project is funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) at the Academy of Finland.
Inquiries
Should you have questions concerning the event, please contact Mari Taskinen (mjtask@utu.fi).