Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Deliberative democracy is a diverse and rapidly growing field of research. But how can deliberative democracy be studied? Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy provides a unique collection of over 30 methods to study deliberative democracy. Written in an accessible style, it provides guidance for scholars and students on how to conduct rigorous and creative research on the public sphere, structured forums, and political institutions. Each chapter introduces a particular method, elaborates its utility in deliberative democracy research, and provides guidance on its application, as well as illustrations from previous studies. This book celebrates the methodological pluralism in the field, and hopes to inspire scholars to undertake methodologically robust, intellectually creative, and politically relevant empirical research.

Selen A. Ercan, Associate Professor of Political Science, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra,Hans Asenbaum, Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra,Nicole Curato, Professor
of Political Sociology, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra,Ricardo F. Mendonça, Associate Professor of Political Science, Federal University of Minas Gerais

Selen A. Ercan is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her work sits at the intersection of normative democratic theory and empirical political research, and examines a wide range of topics including
the politics of inclusion and exclusion in multicultural societies, public deliberation in the face of value conflicts and polarised public debates, and the potential of new forms of political participation and protest movements in reviving democratic practice. Her recent publications include
Mending Democracy: Democratic Repair in Disconnected Times (2020, OUP, with C. Hendriks and J. Boswell). She is the Associate Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Democratic Theory, and Co-convener of the European Consortium for Political Research's Standing Group on Theoretical Perspectives in
Policy Analysis.

Hans Asenbaum is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra and holds a PhD from the University of Westminster. His research interests include identity and inclusion in new participatory spaces, digital politics, and feminist
and gender theory. Hans' work has been published in the American Political Science Review, New Media & Society, Communication Theory and Politics & Gender. He is Co-convener of the Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association in the UK.


Nicole Curato is a Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She is the author of Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedy to Deliberative Action (2019, OUP) and the editor of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy
(formerly Journal of Public Deliberation).


Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil and a Research Fellow at the Brazilian National Institute for Digital Democracy. He also holds a fellowship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and
Technological Development and one from - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais. His published work also includes Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice (2019, Routledge with S. Elstub and S. Ercan), Introduction to Democratic Theory (2018, UFMG, with E. Cunha), Online
Deliberation in Brazil (2016, EDUFBA, with R. Sampaio and S. Barros).

Foreword, Graham Smith
1. Researching Deliberative Democracy: Key Approaches and Methods, Selen A. Ercan, Hans Asenbaum, Nicole Curato, Ricardo F. Mendonça
Part 1. Theorizing Deliberation
2. Methods of Theorizing, Simone Chambers
3. Formal Models, James Johnson
4. Grounded Normative Theory, Genevieve Fuji Johnson
5. Democratic Theorizing, Hans Asenbaum
Part 2. Measuring Deliberation
6. Discourse Quality Index, Andre Bächtiger, Marlène Gerber and Eléonore Fournier-Tombs
7. Deliberative Reasoning Index, Simon Niemeyer and Francesco Veri
8. Listening Quality Index, Mary (Molly) F. Scudder
9. Macro-level Assessment of Deliberative Quality, Dannica Fleuß
10. Online Deliberation Matrix, Raphaël Kies
11. Experimental Methods, Kimmo Grönlund and Kaisa Herne
12. Deliberative Field Experiments, Jon Kingzette and Michael Neblo
13. Scenario Experiments, Lala Muradova and Hannah Werner
14. Survey Methods, John Gastil
15. Social Network Analysis, Eduardo M. da Silva, Antonio Carlos A. Ribeiro and Silvio S. Higgins
16. Big Data Analysis, Núria Franco-Guillén, Sebastian de Laile and John Parkinson
17. Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Matt Ryan
Part 3. Exploring Deliberation
18. Ethnography, Nicole Curato and Nicole Doerr
19. Rhetorical Criticism, John Rountree
20. Process Tracing, Jonathan Pickering
21. Q Methodology, Lucy J. Parry
22. Dramaturgical Analysis, Selen A. Ercan and Carolyn Hendriks
23. Narrative Analysis, John Boswell
24. Frame Analysis, Ricardo F. Mendonça and Paula G. Simões
25. Talk-based Analysis, Paromita Sanyal
26. Media Analysis, Rousiley C. M. Maia and ThaÍs Choucair
27. Mixed Methods, Oliver Escobar
28. Case Study Research, Stephen Elstub and Gianfranco Pomatto
Part 4. Enacting Deliberation
29. Deliberative Policy Analysis, Hendrik Wagenaar
30. Action Research, Kiran Cunningham and Lillian Muyomba-Tamale
31. Community of Inquiry, Kei Nishiyama
32. Deliberative Camp, Donatella della Porta and Andrea Felicetti
33. Mutual Need: In the Study of Deliberative Democracy, Norms, Practice, and Empirical Assessment Depend on One Another, Jane Mansbridge