Page 139 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

Recruitment decisions have already started with the design decisions of scale, demographics and random-selection. (Steps 3-6 in previous chapter). In-depth deliberative processes rely on recruiting a much smaller number of participants who are descriptively representative of the community. We recommend that you use a process of Civic Lottery that filters participants by the four standard variables discussed earlier: • Age • Gender • geographic locality • Optional: add a demographic indicator to ensure a mix of income and education levels. Geographic locality will address part of this. In Australia, we ask people if they own or rent where they live. Look for a question people are happy to answer honestly. This approach is not claimed as a statistically perfect method, instead it delivers a more mixed and diverse sample than any other community process. The strength of this selection process lies in the wider community clearly seeing “people like me” in decision making positions – descriptive representation in this way fosters trust in the group and any decisions they end up making. A note on gender representation: in some cultural contexts you may need to navigate social structures that would typically see a male represent the household in public decisions. People who have delivered projects where this occurs manage this by explaining why you are choosing a woman and not a man for this project – and that if you do not get a balance then the project will not work at all. This combination of a clear explanation of why and that if it does not happen then a decision cannot happen, will help you achieve a diverse group. 137