Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers

This paper aims to understand accountability relations in minipublics. It shows that accountability might be weak for their participants, but not for their organizers. It discusses accountability in a descriptive fashion as a relational concept that can be weak or strong depending on the weight of s...

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Main Author: Volkan Gül
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Westminster Press 2022-04-01
Series:Journal of Deliberative Democracy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://delibdemjournal.org/article/id/947/
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author Volkan Gül
author_facet Volkan Gül
author_sort Volkan Gül
collection DOAJ
description This paper aims to understand accountability relations in minipublics. It shows that accountability might be weak for their participants, but not for their organizers. It discusses accountability in a descriptive fashion as a relational concept that can be weak or strong depending on the weight of sanctions. In addition, deliberative accountability has a separate section. While the deliberative accountability of deliberators is obvious, the deliberative accountability of organizers is not discussed much, yet it is an important expectation from organizers. This will be clearer when various accountability relations in the context of minipublics are fleshed out by asking who is accountable to whom and for what?. The final section will raise three points. Firstly, trust-based selection model of principal-agent accountability (Mansbridge 2009, 2014) will be discussed as it seems to offer us a different perspective on the weak accountability of participants and points at the importance of selection done by organizers. Secondly, it will be argued that the empowerment of minipublics is an important determinant of whether we want stronger accountability mechanisms in minipublics. Finally, it will be argued that organizers might be held accountable for the decisions made by an empowered minipublic.
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spelling doaj-art-44cf22c4517149e4905cbaf2b1d3a6b42025-08-20T03:41:54ZengUniversity of Westminster PressJournal of Deliberative Democracy2634-04882022-04-0118110.16997/jdd.947Accountability Relations in Minipublics and OrganizersVolkan Gül0Kütahya Dumlupınar UniversityThis paper aims to understand accountability relations in minipublics. It shows that accountability might be weak for their participants, but not for their organizers. It discusses accountability in a descriptive fashion as a relational concept that can be weak or strong depending on the weight of sanctions. In addition, deliberative accountability has a separate section. While the deliberative accountability of deliberators is obvious, the deliberative accountability of organizers is not discussed much, yet it is an important expectation from organizers. This will be clearer when various accountability relations in the context of minipublics are fleshed out by asking who is accountable to whom and for what?. The final section will raise three points. Firstly, trust-based selection model of principal-agent accountability (Mansbridge 2009, 2014) will be discussed as it seems to offer us a different perspective on the weak accountability of participants and points at the importance of selection done by organizers. Secondly, it will be argued that the empowerment of minipublics is an important determinant of whether we want stronger accountability mechanisms in minipublics. Finally, it will be argued that organizers might be held accountable for the decisions made by an empowered minipublic.https://delibdemjournal.org/article/id/947/Empowered minipublicsOrganizersMinipublicsAccountability
spellingShingle Volkan Gül
Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers
Journal of Deliberative Democracy
Empowered minipublics
Organizers
Minipublics
Accountability
title Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers
title_full Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers
title_fullStr Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers
title_full_unstemmed Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers
title_short Accountability Relations in Minipublics and Organizers
title_sort accountability relations in minipublics and organizers
topic Empowered minipublics
Organizers
Minipublics
Accountability
url https://delibdemjournal.org/article/id/947/
work_keys_str_mv AT volkangul accountabilityrelationsinminipublicsandorganizers