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I’m Naoyuki Mikami from the Institute for the Advancement of Higher Education.
In today’s world, we face lots of challenges,
such as global warming, biodiversity loss, conflicts over water and other resources and various threats to human health.
To help tackle these global challenges and open up the future of a sustainable society,
I’d like to talk about a new way to reflect public opinion in politics.
The key is full and open dialogue, which means discussing issues thoroughly.
In political science, deliberative democracy has been a trend for a couple of decades now.
This is a relatively new form of democracy.
It focuses on public involvement in political decision-making based on full and open dialogue.
There are various ways to reflect public views and opinions in decision-making,
like elections and opinion polls.
Slightly different examples include demonstrations, petitions and other forms of social movement.
Elections and opinion polls reflect a wide range of views,
but people tend to respond without thorough discussion or consideration.
Once they vote, the actual political decisions are left to politicians and experts.
On the other hand, social movements include a process of in-depth consideration and thorough discussion of the issues at hand,
but not everyone can easily take part because of the barriers to participation.
The input of broad segments of society results in superficial discussion.
However, only a certain segment of society can be involved with in-depth participation based on full and open dialogue.
This creates a dilemma that seems hard to resolve.
To overcome this problem of political participation,
a new approach based on the concept of “mini-publics” has been developed over the past two decades.
Participants are recruited by random selection, by lottery or by other methods.
They don’t necessarily have a strong interest in the topic of discussion.
In other words, actual microcosms of society are manufactured through this process.
The size of these microcosms varies.
Sometimes there are ten or so people, and sometimes hundreds.
The period of discussion also varies from half a day to about a week.
How are mini-publics organized in society and used in the political decision-making process?
Mini-publics have now been studied for 20 years.
Ways of recruiting participants, ways of reflecting the results of dialogue in politics and various other topics are considered.
In parallel with these studies, hundreds of mini-publics have been organized around the world.
Two years ago, mini-publics were organized simultaneously worldwide to conduct an unprecedented social experiment.
I also took part in this international research project.
The experiment was performed on September 26, 2009.
About 100 people gathered at each of 44 venues in 38 countries around the world.
The theme of the mini-public sessions was global warming.
In principle, 100 members of the public discussed the same topics based on a set timetable using identical information materials.
It was the first worldwide experiment on mini-publics.
It was named World Wide Views (WWViews) by a team from the Danish government that called for the joint research.
To create a microcosm of society,
participants were recruited with ages, genders and occupations reflecting the demographics of each region where the event was held.
The recruits didn’t include researchers of global warming or representatives of environmental protection organizations and the business community.
With these uniform rules, 100 people were recruited in each country.
As a WWViews partner, I served as a facilitator and took charge of the event’s planning and operation in Japan.
The venue in Japan was Kyoto City, where participants held discussions in groups of five or six.
Agenda items included 2020 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for developed countries and emerging countries like Brazil, China and India.
The questions put to the participants were predefined and identical worldwide.
No consensus building was needed in the groups,
and each person voted on the questions after the discussion.
Let’s look at an example.
One of the questions was “What should be the long-term goal for limiting temperature increase?”
In major nations like Russia (the bottom), and the U.S. (second from the bottom),
many participants chose “An increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius is acceptable.”
But the world as a whole (the top), as well as Japan (second from the top), chose stricter targets,
such as “The increase should be limited to 2 degrees Celsius,” (light blue), and “The increase should be limited to the current level,” (blue).
At international conferences, the views of leaders of major powers are presented forcefully,
but WWViews showed that public opinion is often different.
The voting results of all participating countries are provided on the WWViews website.
The results of the discussions were submitted as policy recommendations to an international conference for curbing CO2 emissions.
As you can see from the schedule here, the participants engaged in discussions almost all day long.
After the program, I asked people there about their impressions of the event.
They said they were initially skeptical about whether they’d be able to talk all day with people they didn’t know,
but once they started, they got into it.
They seemed to have gained a sense of fulfillment from discussing global issues with people they’d never met before.
What is the significance of full and open dialogue among members of the public?
The discussions were important
because they indicated that global warming has become so serious that we can no longer afford to leave the matter to experts and politicians alone.
The temperature increases and their impacts on the ecosystem and our lives are scientific issues.
Estimating the amount of reduction in green house emissions is a scientific issue, as well.
However, the permissible level of impact from greenhouse gas emissions can’t be set by scientist alone.
Reduction targets on emissions in individual nations can’t, either.
These matters involve consideration of interests and values, and require political decision-making.
Although levels of damage caused by global warming and the burdens involved in reducing greenhouse gas emissions vary,
they’ll ultimately have to be shouldered by the public.
This is why it’s important to listen to public opinion, rather than to experts or politicians, to determine countermeasures.
Today, I’ve introduced the concept of mini-publics.
This approach can be used for any issues to be discussed among members of the general public.
The number of issues that require scientific knowledge but can’t be resolved by experts alone is increasing.
In response to these issues,
members of the public can engage in full and open dialogue toward a future with a sustainable society.
Mini-publics are a tool for this purpose.
In Hokkaido, social experiments involving mini-publics are already under way.
Five years ago,
the Hokkaido Government and Hokkaido University’s research group hosted a forum for full and open dialogue on genetically modified crops.
It was based on the consensus conference approach.
Last week, a group of researchers from Hokkaido University organized a mini-public using Citizens Jury approach.
We’ll organize another mini-public here using deliberative opinion polling.
This will be the first poll of its kind in Hokkaido.
Around 150 randomly selected members of the public in Sapporo will assemble to discuss food safety and security.
We also conducted a questionnaire survey involving 3,000 people.
After we analyze the results of this survey and the discussion at the forum,
the information will be provided to the Hokkaido Government and the Sapporo Municipal Government.
Hokkaido University has been involved in all three cases we’ve seen here.
This is no coincidence.
In Japan and abroad, research on mini-publics to reflect public opinions involves leading research universities,
particulary those strong in social sciences.
What are the roles of universities?
They serve to create knowledge and develop human resources.
We now live in an age when members of the general public participate in knowledge creation and human resource development.
I believe we should develop knowledge and human resources according to the levels of knowledge and expertise required by society.
I’ve introduced mini-publics here to encourage full and open dialogue and discussion among members of the general public.
In this approach, the knowledge and wisdom needed to steer society can be developed.
I believe that promoting discussion and full and open dialogue is a major intellectual challenge to be tackled by universities.
Thank you for your attention.