How People Evaluate Deliberation: Social Psychological Evidence for the Evaluation of Procedural Fairness

Abstract

Deliberations among randomly selected participants are beginning to be institutionalized. Even if not institutionalized, there are an increasing number of cases where policy making is conducted through a process of citizen participation, including deliberation by randomly selected citizens, with “respect for the results of discussions” and advanced indication that the results of deliberation may influence the policy to be formulated. Correspondingly, there have been studies on people's evaluations of citizen participation processes, including deliberation, as well as studies using hypothetical or simulated deliberation situations as experimental settings. In this paper, we review studies published since January 2010 through the end of July 2022 that examine people's evaluations of the deliberative process with a focus on procedural fairness from a social psychology perspective. The results are examined from three perspectives: the degree of evaluation of procedural fairness, the relationship between procedural fairness and antecedents of procedural fairness, and the impact of procedural fairness on social acceptance. Finally, we discuss the potential contribution of social psychology in promoting the establishment in society that representative deliberation through fair procedures supports policy making in the public decision-making process on important social issues.