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The Expert Dilemma in Democracy:

Insights for Deliberative Practitioners

Sabrina Slagowski-Tipton

Colorado State University

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Recently deliberative practitioners have heard that “anti-intellectualism is killing

America.”1 We exist in a moment during which many issues once left to scientists are now

becoming partisan political issues. Elected officials can “disprove” climate change science by

bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor,2 a large number of citizens believe there is a link

between autism and the MMR vaccine despite copious amounts of evidence to the contrary,3 and

one of our potential presidential candidates (who also happens to be a retired neurosurgeon) has

publicly spoken out against “some vaccines.”4 On their face, these issues are unrelated, but each

one stems to a growing distrust in our society. We have access to scientifically-backed, peer-

reviewed expert knowledge, but there still seems to be a large amount of unhealthy skepticism

for experts in our society. This creates an interesting dilemma for the deliberative community I

call the “expert dilemma.” In a democratic society, skepticism is healthy and often helpful to

many of our conversations. We must be wary of deferring too much to experts in every

circumstance, but it appears large segments of our society have fallen too far into unhealthy

skepticism, which has ultimately damaged our ability to have productive democratic discussions

about certain issues. The center of this dilemma is tied closely to the way we communicate

values and the information our citizens have available to them about expertise in general. As

1 David Niose, June 23, 2015. “Anti-Intellectualism is Killing America.” Psychology Today. Accessed June 25,

2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201506/anti-intellectualism-is-killing-

america 2 Jason Plautz, February, 2015. “Watch Jim Inhofe Throw a Snowball on the Senate Floor.” National Journal

Accessed July 25, 2015, https://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/2015/02/26/watch-jim-inhofe-throw-snowball-

senate-floor 3 Jeffrey Gerber and Paul Offit, “Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypothesis.” Clinical Infectious Diseases,

48 (2009), 456-461. 4 Salzberg, Steven, September, 2015. “Donald Trump Spouts Dangerous Anti-Vaccine Nonsense. Ben Carson’s

Response is Worse.” Forbes. Accessed September 20, 2015,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/09/20/donald-trump-spouts-dangerous-anti-vaccine-nonsense-ben-

carsons-response-is-worse/#22818c441bd5--previous examples were pulled from popular culture to showcase

discussions that are happening in mainstream society. While not from academic sources, they help highlight

troubling trends.

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deliberative practitioners, our goal should be to work through this unhealthy skepticism and

educate citizens and experts alike about their role in promoting democracy.

As a field, deliberative practitioners tend to value the role of civic engagement in our

societies highly, therefore it becomes difficult for us to ask ourselves how exactly experts fit into

our forum designs when many feel as though this expertise is at least partially responsible for the

degradation of our democratic processes.5 It becomes clear the task of navigating the expert

dilemma lies primarily in the hands of deliberative practitioners, so addressing our role in the

design of forums involving experts is an important step to take. We must recognize not all

skepticism of experts should be labelled “bad”. It is our job as citizens and practitioners to

intelligently interrogate and consider expert testimony. We know the track record of experts is

not perfect, but should also remember experts possess important information we should consider

fairly rather than simply tossing it aside.

With this in mind, my research answers the following question: how, as deliberative

practitioners, can we incorporate experts into our events in ways that work to maximize their

positive impact and minimize any negative impacts? After exploring pertinent literature on

experts in deliberation and practitioner discussions about the role of experts as well as literature

relating to skepticism and confirmation bias, this project develops a list of methods practitioners

can use to navigate the expert dilemma in their deliberative events. First, however, it addresses

what exactly the term “expert” means for the purposes of this research.

5 Karin Backstrand, “Scientisation vs. Civic Expertise in Environmental Governance: Eco-Feminist, Eco-modern

and Post-modern Responses.” Environmental Politics, 13 (2010), 700.

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Defining Expertise

In order to appropriately address how to incorporate experts into deliberative events, we

must first define what expert means. It would be foolish to provide insight about how to

incorporate experts into our events without first establishing a suitable definition of what an

expert is for the purpose of this research. To determine this definition, conversations among

practitioners were considered alongside published research from those studying deliberation.

Conversations with deliberative practitioners and others in the field provided helpful insight into

the difficulties we are currently experience in defining expertise, but other scholars can help us

work through this difficulty. Majdik and Keith mark expertise as an authority that is in

opposition to our traditional democratic leanings.6 In studying conversations in the deliberative

community, it becomes clear most of us feel this to be at least partially true. Their research

asserts we must keep authority in check if we are to maintain our democratic ideals. They

smartly note, however, that we are faced with a large amount of risk, which unfortunately

requires us to seek out advice from experts to help us mitigate some of this risk.7 A definition of

expertise provided by their research is one I would like to use as a starting point for the

discussion of expertise in general. We are cautioned against refusing to acknowledge any

boundaries between expert and the lay public. If we refuse to acknowledge these boundaries, we

may be relying too heavily on relativism. I argue at least some murky distinction between expert

and public is necessary. While we cannot agree upon the role of experts, I think we likely can

agree there are some important differences between experts and the public.

6 Zoltan P. Madjik and William M. Keith, “Expertise as Argument: Authority, Democracy, and Problem-Solving.”

Argumentation, 25 (2011), 372. 7 Ibid, 373

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This argument is a tricky one to make in the field of deliberation as we rely heavily on

the concept of self-determination. However, we can simultaneously believe that citizens are

experts in their own lives and there is a difference between this expertise and credentialed

expertise. Citizens are certainly aware of how their individual choices impact their experience

with the world, but they also lack specialized knowledge.

“Expert” for the sake of this paper refers to an individual with specialized knowledge on

a certain topic or issue. Experts are credentialed and information about their expertise is publicly

available. Many have invested years of their lives in established educational institutions studying

their area of specialization and publications demonstrating their research or specialization in their

given field can be accessed with relative ease. Many of these experts have published research in

respectable journals, had their research challenged, and provided a response to these challenges.

This rigor is part of what makes them experts. Still others are experts because of the amount of

time they have spent in other specialized positions, perhaps as city planners or electricians. The

term “expert” denotes an investment of time. Often, it benefits deliberative practitioners to invite

these sort of experts to events because their expertise may benefit the conversation. We seek

them out in order to help us solve our problems and mitigate our risks, but this does not mean we

would like them to make decisions for us. Rather, we should take into account their expertise and

allow it to inform our public decisions. It should also be noted we cannot expect any given expert

to be “value-free”, as this is simply not possible.8 While much expert research is done through an

objective lens, expecting our experts to disconnect entirely from any personal connection to the

results in simply unfair. The following table breaks down the three components of expertise and

explains their advantages and disadvantages as they relate to deliberative practice:

8 Heather Douglas, Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburg Press, 2009), 99

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This research focuses specifically on sanctioned experts or experts we have sought out to

incorporate into our forums or processes, while recognizing there are certainly “self-appointed

experts” or participants in our conversations who play the role of expert at the table based upon

research they have done in their own time. These folks do not necessarily have the credentials or

educational background of a sanctioned expert but nonetheless attempt to take on an expert role,

and perhaps have a certain amount of respectable knowledge about the topic. We may even

choose to refer to these non-credentialed experts as “civic experts.”9 The importance of these

citizens is undeniable, but the purpose of this research is to examine the role of credentialed

experts as defined above. Later research can address the role of self-appointed experts. Now that

we have a working definition of expertise, we can begin looking at the current relationship

9 Karin Backstrand, “Scientisation vs. Civic Expertise in Environmental Governance: Eco-Feminist, Eco-modern

and Post-modern Responses.” Environmental Politics, 13 (2010), 704-705.

Component of Expertise Advantage of Component Disadvantage of Component

Specialized Specialization helps the expert

understand the nuances of a given

issue

Expert can understand the specifics

of the given issue and explain it to

the public in a linear way

Expert has knowledge about the

depth of the issue

Expert may be too focused on one

aspect of the issue

Expert may be unable to discuss the

breadth of the issue, instead

emphasizing depth

Credentialed Investment of time helps build trust

in expertise

Expert has studied and experienced

many components related to the

particular issue

Credentials signify the quality and

expertise of work

Creates a sense of hierarchy in

which the public feels disconnected

Can lead to expert dismissing the

public due to their assumed lack of

knowledge

Duty to Impartial Standards Privilege fact-based information

over ideology

Expertise holds them accountable to

certain processes

Can under-emphasize the

importance of other forms of

knowledge

True impartiality is not a reachable

ideal and the perception of

impartiality can be abused

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between experts and the public in order to establish a need for the deliberative community to

intervene and help rebuild these relationships.

The Current Relationship between Experts and the Public

Frank Fischer, Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, labelled the dilemma

between the public and science [experts] as one of open discussion versus the “knowledge

elites.”10 This sums up nicely the heart of much of our citizen distrust of expertise. Expertise in

general has often been viewed as an ivory tower of sorts, in which the highly educated sit above

the citizenry and wax poetic about highly theoretical problems that often have no practical

implications. This is one cause of the growing distrust between experts and the public. The ivory

tower mindset has helped set up a false competition between the citizenry and those in the

“educated elite.” Those of us in academia are all too familiar with these conversations. We are

often left asking ourselves: “now what?” Often, we can write about issues and their societal

implications, but our research is far from the reaches of many individuals in our society.

It is now our job in the deliberative community to reframe interactions with experts as an

additional way to re-energize the democratic process rather than a nuisance that hampers truly

productive deliberation. However, if we consider the deeper reasoning behind unhealthy

skepticism of experts this task becomes much more daunting. There is a tangible disconnect

created by assumptions of superiority that we need to break down in order to successfully

incorporate experts in any deliberative event. Unfortunately, the problem of knowledge elites

only explains one aspect of the unhealthy skepticism in our society. In order to fully understand

the current state of the relationship between experts and the public, we must examine the

10 Frank Fisher. Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Delberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 205

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numerous sources of public skepticism while also looking at struggles the deliberative

community has with agreeing on the role of experts in deliberative processes. This will allow us

to establish a true need for a deliberative intervention in this issue.

The erosion of trust in experts has also been helped along by the availability of

technology and the media in general. We can begin to understand the valid basis of this distrust if

we consider a “test” of sorts done in 1970. A young researcher decided to find out if a non-expert

could fool a group of professors and faculty members into thinking he was an expert based on his

persona alone. Troublingly enough, he found it was possible. With intimidation and charisma, a

paid actor was able to convince a group of well-educated people he was an accomplished

scientist. He presented no credible evidence and in fact never brought up any main points, but his

talk was praised.11 Participants of the new millennium are not as easily fooled and often use

stories like this to explain why they do not feel comfortable with experts in the room; how do we

know for sure they are experts?12 In the 1970s, perhaps it was easier to persuade folks of your

expertise by simply being charismatic, but the information age has changed this drastically.

Immediate access to numerous sources of information have equipped our citizenry with tools to

interrogate expert opinion and find contrary facts to nearly any given issue.

Manjoo expands upon this particular cause of distrust further by reminding us of the

ability interest groups and activists acting as experts have to push the public away from their

causes, rather than bringing them closer. As a result of instances such as these, many Americans

are beginning to see experts as more self-concerned than focused on providing accurate

11 Manjoo, Farhad. 2008. True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 112-

115 12 Cillizza, Chris. April 2015. “Millennials Don’t Trust Anyone. That’s a Big Deal.” The Washington Post. Accessed

June 25, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/04/30/millennials-dont-trust-anyone-what-

else-is-new/

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information.13 Suspicion of motives among participants in a deliberative forum is a true danger

to democratic conversation. This is especially true if experts are present during these

conversations and can even sometimes lead to confrontations between the experts and the

participants. While we do not necessarily want to “shut down” confrontation entirely in our

forums, it can have the tendency to negatively impact others involved in the discussion if one

participant has trouble trusting the experts present. For some, perhaps this scenario of

confrontation seems far-fetched, and while it is a rare occurrence, it certainly does happen from

time to time. Addressing this distrust is paramount, but prior to proposing solutions to the

problem, we must look more deeply into additional layers of public skepticism.

The previous paragraphs provide a helpful discussion of specific events or changes in

technology that have bred expert distrust, but this issue is complex and much of what we should

examine as it relates to the relationships between experts and the public requires us to also

consider citizens themselves. More specifically, we must consider the ways in which their

opinions/attitudes and values are formed and cultivated. The aforementioned terms have different

meanings, but share one similarity: they cannot be described as knowledge. Opinions and

attitudes are often used interchangeably in this piece, as they tend to describe the same things.

These terms are used to describe judgments, views or convictions held by a person about a

particular issue and they hold both cognitive and emotional meanings. Opinions and attitudes are

generally narrow and expressed by individuals in specific terms.14 Most importantly, opinions or

attitudes are tentative, they can be changed. Values should be distinguished from

opinions/attitudes because they reflect an individual’s goals or ideals. Values reflect the ultimate

13 Manjoo, Farhad. 2008. True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 103 14 Daniel Yankelovich. 1991. Coming to Public Judgement: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World.

Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 122

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goals of an individual; the belief structures and priorities an individual finds most important.15

As such, values are often more difficult to influence and change because they are based on a

variety of factors and tend to be immovable. Manjoo asserts that when it comes to

opinions/attitudes, many folks in our society are now “fighting over competing versions of

reality.”16 As mentioned earlier, the rise of the internet has certainly helped breed distrust in

experts because of information available about “bad” experts, but is has also enhanced our ability

to seek out news and information tailored specifically to our own interests with relative ease. We

are capable of building a world seemingly comprised of our own facts. Many of these facts are

not necessarily backed up by expert information, but because they present themselves as “true

enough” we can make the psychological leaps necessary to view them as indisputable facts.

Approaching conversations with this in mind can be somewhat difficult if we consider

the interplay between these tailored facts, opinions, and values. Throughout our lives, we have

navigated discussions in which we may have heard the phrase, “I respect your opinion, but I

disagree with you.” Often, we tend to approach these conversations under the assumption that

opinions are more fluid in nature than our attitudes and values and therefore are more easily

changed through engaged discussion, and this is true. However, it differs when individuals hold a

specific opinion for an extended amount of time and rarely have that opinion challenged. Daniel

Yankelovich argues opinions are not quite as fluid as we believe. Rather, opinions can indeed be

volatile if they have not yet been worked through, but can be rather immovable once a person has

arrived at what they think is public judgment.17 As many people acquire their opinions from

15 Daniel Yankelovich. 1991. Coming to Public Judgement: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World.

Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 122 16 Farhad Manjoo. 2008. True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2 17 Daniel Yankelovich. 1991. Coming to Public Judgement: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World.

Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 123

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outside media sources, this may help explain the reason why the line between opinion and fact

has so often become blurred in our conversations.18 The public’s ability to blur this line is one of

the reasons why public distrust of experts has reached such an unhealthy level. Once citizens

have been able to form opinions based upon cherry-picked knowledge, we may struggle to have

conversations with them if our facts are countering things they already believe.

Additional research into opinion formation and opinion change should make the need for

deliberative intervention even more clear. In a 1968 study, Edwards concluded that people are

“conservative information processors.”19 What this means is we do not generally revise

established beliefs to accommodate any new information, especially if that information is

contrary to the information we previously heard. Numerous studies throughout the decades have

built upon this assertion and examined our tendency to evaluate most of the information we take

in with a directional bias. Essentially, when we receive information, rather than viewing it all

with limited bias, we tend to tailor this information so it falls in line with our pre-existing beliefs

about the matter.20 Stated in another way, we could say the original information has primacy

over any subsequent information received about any given topic. This assertion is supported by

research completed by Lingle and Olstrom in 1981. The first conclusion we reach about any

given topic is often the conclusion we stick with regardless of new information we received.21

Koehler, through a study in 1993, found this is not only true for those in the public. His study

showed even those in the scientific community tended to judge studies that supported their

18 Daniel Yankelovich. 1991. Coming to Public Judgement: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World.

Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 124 19 Ward Edwards. 1968. “Conservatism in Human Information Processing.” In B. Kleinmuntz (Ed.), Formal

Representations of Human Judgment. New York: Wiley, 150 20 Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Polit

Behav (2010), 307 21 John Lingle and Thomas Ostrom. 1981. “Principles of Memory and Cognition in Attitude Formation.” Cognitive

Responses in Persuasive Communication: A Text in Attitude Change. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 403

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current research or beliefs to be more relevant.22 We can see here that that this has implications

for both expert behavior and the behavior of our participants in forums.

In many cases, research shows citizens are likely to resist or entirely reject information

that does not line up with their current belief structures. Sometimes, this can lead to citizens

basing their opinions on information that is factually incorrect.23 Furthermore, once these factual

misperceptions are formed, it becomes all but impossible to change them. A 2010 study

considering four experimental groups over a two-year span determined that most “ideological

subgroups” did not update their opinions or misperceptions after being presented with factual

information to the contrary. In fact, this information tended to strengthen their misperceptions

rather than correct them.24 Their research also found those citizens who were least informed were

also the most confident in their answers to fact-related questions, though their answers were most

often incorrect.25

This is not a new phenomenon. Sir Francis Bacon discussed the concept of confirmation

bias long before deliberation became a buzzword. He smartly noted in 1620 “human

understanding, when any proposition has once been laid down (either from general admission

and belief, or from the pleasure it affords), forces everything to add fresh support and

confirmation”26 We tend to be quite confident about our opinions and facts related to those

opinions. Often this confidence, while positive in many situations outside deliberation, can be

22 Jonathan Koehler, “The Influence of Prior Beliefs on Scientific Judgments of Evidence Quality.” Organizational

Behavior and Human Decision Processes. (1993), 46 23 James Kuklinski, et al. “Misinformation and the Currency of Democratic Citizenship.” The Journal of Politics

(2000), 792. 24 Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Polit

Behav (2010), 304. 25 Ibid 26 Bacon, F. (1620). Novum Organum. New York: P.F. Collier & Son.

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detrimental to the democratic conversations. Nickerson goes so far as to say this confirmation

bias may be so ingrained into our intellectual processes is may be to blame for “a significant

fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misunderstandings that occur among individuals,

groups, and nations.”27 This may help explain how so often in our modern times our political

conversations are reduced to shouting matches and debates about who is correct and who is lying

to earn more votes or push an agenda. This is, of course, where deliberative practice comes in,

but we must understand these concepts while also being wary of incorporating experts into our

events who are presenting an agenda rather than explaining facts fairly, remember, Edwards

showed us experts can fall victim to confirmation bias as well.. What much of the research about

public skepticism of expertise points to is not ignorance, rather a tension in values. As a field,

working through value tensions is something we take pride in, but often these value tensions are

so volatile it becomes nearly impossible to navigate them successfully. This section has provided

a detailed discussion on the current relationship between experts in the public, highlighting the

true need for a deliberative intervention to improve public trust in expertise. Before detailing the

expert dilemma and proposing methods for navigating it, we must also consider the difficulty

even the deliberative community has with coming to terms with expertise and its role in our

events.

The Struggle in the Deliberative Community

Often, deliberative practitioners struggle to determine the proper role for experts in public

forums. Sometimes even we struggle to come to agreement about the importance of experts and

even who counts as an expert, so the disconnect does not only exist between experts and the

27 Raymond Nickerson, “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises..” Review of General

Psychology. (1998), 175.

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public. This became abundantly clear after analyzing responses to a question asking how we can

properly address the expert dilemma in our events. In order to get a sense of how the deliberative

community felt about the presence of experts in our forums, I began a discussion on the National

Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation listserv. This question asked practitioners what they

thought the role of expert was in forums and ways we might be able to work through public

distrust of experts. I tracked the post for three weeks during which time 52 responses were

posted. Prior to delving into specific content in the responses, each was separated and grouped

based on three categories: practitioners who supported an expert presence at forums,

practitioners who were wary of experts at forums, and practitioners who discussed a topic mostly

unrelated to expertise. Responses from the final group, 10 total, were removed from those

responses used for the purposes of this paper.

While this piece maintains a firm stance that expert presence can be beneficial in many of

our deliberative events, reading responses from the deliberative community made me realize the

term “expert” is not black and white and should be approached with caution when the role of

expertise in deliberation is discussed. Utilizing the input of others in the field became integral in

understanding the divide that currently exists between experts and the public. The importance

here is to maintain the value of experts. Many of our participants may want to carefully examine

expert argument and come to their own conclusion about the facts while others in our society

will tend to defer to experts and regard them as authorities in their field.28 In either case, experts

are sometimes helpful and necessary in our discussions.

28 Chris Santos-Lang, creator of GRIN software, which analyzes the moral ecology of machines, noted in our NCDD

discussion that individuals trust experts differently. He states that our citizens take large advantages from the

specializations experts hold.

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Numerous members of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation discussion

were wary of assigning too much power to experts. They hearkened to a quote: “A new scientific

truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather

because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”29

This quote was utilized to highlight the fact that much scientific consensus is not really

consensus at all, simply that those who opposed it have now passed away and the power rests

with those who are all in agreement. These practitioners are quick to remind us that experts or

scientists do not work in a vacuum separated from other citizens in their society. Plainly, experts

are human beings as well and, as such, are capable of error. These practitioners feel as though

expert testimony should be viewed as one possible input into any given problem and tend to also

be of the mindset that all opinions are created equal regardless of their expertise claims. 30 Still

others in the deliberative community worry about the assumption all opinions are created equal

and point to the numerous issues in our society that can arise when citizens are able to carry on

conversations under the protection of assertions like: “it is just a matter of opinion.” Practitioners

who disagree with the “all opinions are created equal” stance feel as though we have an

obligation to listen to credentialed experts because of the rigorous training they have undertaken

and the credibility of research they have published.31

It becomes clear through this back and forth discussion that we must strive to find a

middle ground where our participants can acknowledge the value of expert testimony while

29 Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 99. 30 Stuart Miles-McLean of the Environmental Protection Agency and Terry Steichen engage in a discussion that

reminds us experts are never truly objective and point us to examples in which expertise and science have been

proven false. They ask us to consider the views of those citizens who do not hold expert credentials equally as

important as those views and facts shared by credentialed experts. 31 David P. Magnani, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Corporate and Foundation Relations at the University of

Massachusetts.

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working also to intelligently interrogate their facts. We know experts are not always completely

objective, and while we should not fall too far into the belief structure that experts should be

regarded as an “authority” on any given issue, we simply must be willing to acknowledge they

are typically more objective than regular citizens and have more information about the issue than

we possess. By combining expert and public knowledge, we become more capable of making

informed and community-centered decisions. Throughout the course of the NCDD discussion, a

quote from one of the practitioners stood out as perhaps the most important contribution as well

as an excellent encapsulation of exactly the type of dilemma deliberative practitioners deal with

when incorporating experts into their events: “Beware of experts and beware more so of those

posing as such-and be most wary of those who think we don’t need experts at all.”32 This quote

perfectly sums up the way deliberative practitioners should approach expertise. I disagree with

those in the community who feel an expert presence will always be a negative. This quote helps

us realize the true need for deliberative practitioners to choose their experts wisely.

As a member of the deliberative community, I have seen first-hand how the skepticism of

experts can have a negative impact on deliberative forums. The previous discussion has made it

clear that agreeing on the role of experts and even their importance is not something

accomplished easily, even among practitioners, but we should be wary in our disagreements of

contributing too much to conspiracy theorists and those citizens who are patently opposed to an

expert presence. In 2014, I had an experience in a deliberative forum that highlights the danger

of unhealthy skepticism perfectly. A single participant in a small group was convinced we were

working for the experts present at the event and that our only purpose was to “brainwash” the

32 David P. Magnani, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Corporate and Foundation Relations at the University of

Massachusetts.

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group. Try as we might as facilitators, we could not convince this person the process was non-

partisan. Rather, he attempted to convince the other participants in our discussion that this was

all related to an Agenda 21 conspiracy and had little to do with the actual conversation at-hand.

Participants such as these tend to hijack deliberative conversations by essentially frightening

other members of the group into silence. In that moment, what was our role? In this participant’s

mind, our impartiality was gone and he no longer wished to engage in the discussion. This is

why defining expertise and working through how we incorporate experts in our events is

important. While encounters like this are rare, addressing the expert dilemma prior that

confrontation unfolding would have helped the facilitator and the other participants at the event.

Differentiating Skepticism and Ignorance

In reading the previous sections, it should be clear that unhealthy skepticism is a multi-

faceted problem we must address. It is important, however, in our discussions of skepticism that

we avoid painting skeptics as merely ignorant. This is simply not the case. Before we approach

ways to navigate the expert dilemma, we must also be willing to consider the perspective of

those we often criticize for being overly skeptical. If we consider vaccination skepticism as an

example, the following discussion will help further explain how these opinions rarely come from

a place of pure ignorance. Rather, these opinions often arise out of concern for specific values.

The unique values of our citizens and participants should be carefully considered as we attempt

to navigate the expert dilemma. Anti-vaccination sentiments are not a new phenomenon, to be

sure. Wolfe and Sharp trace one of the first anti-vaccination movements to the early 19th century

and was a reaction to what many citizens felt was government overreach into their personal

decisions. Early vaccination acts levied fines against parents who did not vaccinate their

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children, which caused quite an uproar especially among citizens in poorer communities.33 This

research helps us see how skepticism such as this is not necessarily a result of ignorance; it is a

tension between differing values.

The modern movement of vaccine skeptics is also much more complex than a simple

demand for freedom. Lakoff smartly notes this movement is also based upon parental

assumptions about the obligation to care for their own children and be experts about their

immune systems. 34 Implicit in this assumption, then, is the belief that scientists are not experts

in the immune systems of individual children. This parental concern is also combined with

concern for medical cover-ups and the profit drives of the pharmaceutical industry.35 The reasons

for the anti-vaccination movement’s growth extend far beyond uninformed opinions, and are

more closely related to a protective parental instinct, which can explain why these stances are

hard to influence even with large amounts of credible scientific evidence. Parents with anti-

vaccination leanings tend to believe they can trust the stories of other parents regardless of

scientific research showing information to the contrary. Their ideology rests under what

Camargo and Grant term a “paralyzing form of skepticism.”36 Their skepticism empowers their

decisions to avoid vaccinating their children because, to them, doing nothing in the face of

potential danger is better than choosing to vaccinate their children and cause unintentional

harm.37 This is but one specific example of skepticism, this conversation should equip us with

33 Robert Wolfe and Lisa Sharp, “Anti-Vaccinationists Past and Present.” BMJ, 325 (2002), 430-432. 34 Andrew Lakoff, “Vaccine Politics and the Management of Public Reason.” Public Culture, 27 (2015), 424. 35 Julie Leask, “What Maintains Parental Support for Vaccination when Challenged by Anti-Vaccination

Messages?” Vaccine, 24 (2006), 7238-7245.

36 Kenneth Camargo and Roy Grant, “Public Health, Science, and Policy Debate: Being Right is not Enough.”

American Journal of Public Health, 105 (2015), 232. 37 Andrew Lakoff, “Vaccine Politics and the Management of Public Reason.” Public Culture, 27 (2015), 424.

19

new ways of thinking about our citizens and the things they value. That is really the heart of any

conversation we may have about the “expert dilemma”.

Our job as practitioners is to continue innovating to create ways for our participants and

experts to begin their discussions on a foundation of trust. If we heed the words of Frank Fischer,

belief is founded on a concept of trust. By his logic, it will be nearly impossible for participants

to believe narratives from other citizens or even empirically true knowledge from experts if there

is no sense of trust.38 The following section explains the expert dilemma in detail and introduces

valuable information about the role of expertise in deliberative forums. As a field, we must be

wary of excluding experts from our events entirely, but we must also practice discretion when we

choose which events and conversations they are invited to.

The Expert Dilemma

Having broken down a definition of “expert” and detailed the current state of the

relationship between experts and public, we can now address what exactly the “expert dilemma”

looks like as it relates to deliberative events. This term relates specifically to the difficulty we

sometimes have as practitioners to make sure experts are present when necessary, utilizing the

positive aspects they can bring to deliberative events, while not allowing them to dominate the

conversation too much and foreclose truly democratic conversation. We can view the phrase

expert dilemma as a way to set up the challenges deliberative practitioners grapple with as they

attempt to negotiate tensions between quality data and equality in discussion and how they

choose to incorporate experts and hold them accountable for their contributions. Madjik and

Keith note: “for expertise to produce ‘good’ solutions would require a dialogic mechanism for

38 Fisher, Frank. Democracy and Expertise: Reorienting Policy Inquiry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 191-213

20

including the input of stakeholders in the outcome.”39 This is what deliberation allows us to do,

but without experts present, our participants may be missing valuable information they can use to

enhance their decisions and input.

An additional way of conceptualizing the expert

dilemma is by using Martin Carcasson’s

“Passionate Impartiality Triangle.” We are

constantly negotiating tensions between

maintaining good data and honoring equality and

inclusion. This is where the expert role becomes

less clear. Some in our field are troubled by the

belief that expert opinions outrank others’ based solely upon level of education, and for good

reasons. If we want our processes to be truly democratic, should we not value all voices equally?

Others, however, feel that expert knowledge should carry more weight than that of citizen

knowledge and feel experts can play an integral role in citizen education as it relates to

policymaking decisions. This assertion more accurately describes just what a “good” deliberative

process should do. The importance of valuing the input of citizen participants cannot be denied,

however it would be foolish of us to say that all opinions carry equal weight and value in our

policy discussions. In order to have a productive conversation we must find ways to utilize facts

to our advantage while still acknowledging the importance of opinion. We should not, however,

allow uninformed opinions to become the center of our conversations. This is where an expert

presence can play an integral role.

39 Zoltan P. Madjik and William M. Keith, “Expertise as Argument: Authority, Democracy, and Problem-Solving.”

Argumentation, 25 (2011), 373.

21

In an attempt to disagree with this assertion, others will argue we also have numerous

examples showing groups of self-appointed citizen experts taking matters into their own hands,

doing their own research and creating positive changes in their communities. However, for every

example of self-appointed experts creating positive change there is likely a story of self-

appointed experts derailing conversations because the presence of official experts makes them

uneasy and feel as though there is some “catch” to their participation. The question becomes,

how can practitioners bring all these folks together to engage in productive, democratic and

respectful conversations? In order to fully understand the expert dilemma, it is important to

consider real examples of the involvement of experts in deliberative forums to highlight how

they can be somewhat dangerous, but also how they can be beneficial to our processes if utilized

appropriately.

Fort Collins Innovation Summit: A Case of Expert Dominance

In January of 2016, the City of Fort Collins teamed up with Colorado State University

and the local business community to host an Innovation Summit. The Center for Public

Deliberation was invited to facilitate small group discussions after a leadership panel. This event

was not open to the public; rather the groups in charge of the event recruited a list of participants

based on their involvement with one of the three interested entities. The Summit itself was meant

to be a way for members of these three particular groups to gather ideas about how to improve

the innovation ecology. The first hour was slated for a “leadership panel” of sorts that was billed

as a question and answer session. Unfortunately, the panel not only ran fifteen minutes over time,

but participants at the event were not invited to ask questions of the experts on the panel. In turn,

this limited the amount of time participants had for discussion and were left with a limited view

of what a deliberative process actually looks like. While the main purpose of this get-together

22

was not wholly focused on deliberation, it was certainly billed as an event that would at least be

an even split between the leadership panel and small group discussions.

In examining the raw data from the event, it becomes clear the participants felt as though

the leadership panel took too much time and detracted from what they felt was the true purpose

of the event-speaking together and brainstorming about improving the innovation ecology of Fort

Collins. As we wrapped up our conversations, numerous participants sought out facilitators to

ask them exactly what it was the Center for Public Deliberation does in our specific community

and how to get in contact with us to help with events in the future. The participants understood

the importance of small group discussions and were left feeling slightly underwhelmed by the

amount of time given to discuss such a large issue. This event, while not a disaster by any means,

can be an example of what can happen if we allow expert or leadership presence to dominate in

an arena where we are seeking public input about a particular issue. We had a room full of

engaged citizens who were willing to have respectful discussions, were happy having their

preconceived notions challenged, and even sought out input from others who were quiet in their

groups. Unfortunately, we were not able to capitalize on this opportunity as much as we should

have been. With this example, we can see how allowing experts or leaders to dominate not only

forecloses on truly democratic conversation, but can in fact take valuable time away from

something that may have been a lengthy, helpful discussion.

April 2015 Community Issues Forum: A Case of Beneficial Experts

In the spring of 2015, the Center for Public Deliberation was invited to facilitate small

group discussions around three City of Fort Collins issues: a newly introduced downtown plan,

the water efficiency plan, and the City recycling plan. The purpose of this event was to ask the

community their thoughts on these plans related specifically to things that were working and

23

things that could be changed or improved. Each plan was given its own sessions and facilitators

helped them work through several questions. Experts working with the city on the three plans

were present to provide initial information about what each plan detailed and then acted as

roving experts once the room was sent to small group discussions. Throughout the course of this

event, citizens were highly engaged and providing helpful insights about certain aspects of each

plan that could be improved or even things that were working well that citizens wanted to keep

intact.

In the final session, focusing on the recycling plan, many participants were lacking

information about the current recycling policies in the City of Fort Collins as well as information

about places they could take large electronic items to be recycled. As a facilitator, I motioned for

an expert to stop over so one of my participants could ask a few questions. This expert

intervention was beneficial for the entire table of citizens as she was able to provide answers

most of them were simply not aware of. Perhaps the most beneficial thing about expert presence

in this sense was this person’s ability to stop over briefly to help us work through fact questions

that put our conversation on hold and slip away as quickly as she came. This particular expert did

not spend a lot of additional time at the table discussing other fact issues, she simply answered

the question she was asked and left our table to finish their small group discussion. Expert

involvement of this sort is exactly what deliberative practitioners should be aiming for. Expertise

should be a useful tool helping our citizens quickly resolve important fact questions they may not

have all the information about.

Equipped with a working definition of expertise as well as an explanation of what exactly

the expert dilemma is, we can now move onto a discussion of the positives and negatives of

expert presence in deliberative forums. The previous examples will allow us to populate a list of

24

the positive and negative impacts experts can bring to events and then work through how we can

maximize their positive impacts while minimizing or eliminating their negative impacts.

Expertise in Deliberative Forums

Negative Impacts of Expert Presence

Perhaps it seems inappropriate to begin our discussion with the negative impacts of

expert presence, but it is integral to consider the negative impacts experts may have on our

events if we are not careful in choosing and incorporating them. One of the major theoretical

critiques of the deliberative process deals directly with experts and the ways in which we discuss

information.40 The underlying fear here is that in our search for reasoned argument and empirical

data, we are foreclosing on truly democratic discussion and excluding many sectors of our

society from events based solely upon the knowledge they possess and the communication

tactics they use in public forums.41 Even as we define terms such as “reason” and “knowledge”,

we must consider the group of people in charge of creating these definitions. Most of the time

they are not average citizens, they are experts. In this sense, credentialed experts have the power

to define the very things normal citizens are discussing in public forums. The power to define is

a concept that should weigh heavily on us as we design and carry out public forums. As

practitioners, we often ask ourselves how to get the “right people in the room,” but we must also

be willing to ask ourselves how we can make our forums accessible enough from a knowledge

standpoint as well.

40 Lynn Sanders, “Against Deliberation.” Political Theory, 25 (1997), 353-355. 41 Loren Collingwood and Justin Reedy, “Listening and Responding to Criticisms of Deliberative Engagement” in

Democracy in Motion 241-244

25

With the previous discussion in mind, I have compiled a list of five negative impacts

experts can have on deliberative forums if they are not utilized correctly by the practitioner:

1. Experts can foreclose democratic conversation

2. They can place too much value on data while ignoring the importance of other forms of

knowledge

3. Experts may cherry-pick facts

4. They can limit the public’s choices for discussion

5. They may skew the conversation too far into extreme optimism or extreme pessimism

1 & 2. If we choose to rely too heavily on experts and call for reasoned and empirical

conversations, practitioners may unintentionally be setting deliberative forums up as privileged

events. As Collingwood and Reedy state, often when we rely too heavily on expert opinion and

empirical data, we are excluding the poor, minorities, and women who historically tend to

communicate through narrative and emotional appeals.42 Our unintentional exclusion can cause

many other issues the deliberative community faces currently; the issue of limited participation

being perhaps the largest issue. If we are over-valuing expert testimony and giving little weight

to narrative, those members in our communities that perhaps have limited access will be absent

in discussions directly impacting their lives. The difficult question becomes: how do we

negotiate these tensions and make sure all voices are valued while also being able to say as

practitioners, experts, and facilitators, “your voice is valued, but your information may not be

complete, let’s work through this together”? We must be willing to say this not only to the

citizens in our forums, but also to the experts there as well.

3. When experts cherry-pick facts, often participants are left with limited information on

the problem and they become unable to engage in a fully productive discussion. We know there

42 Loren Collingwood and Justin Reedy, “Listening and Responding to Criticisms of Deliberative Engagement” in

Democracy in Motion, 244

26

are time constraints involved in all our processes that make it impossible for experts to share

every single piece of data with our participants. Furthermore, we know that utilizing too many

facts can become overwhelming, especially if those facts are not presented in accessible ways.

However, we must also acknowledge facts are an important component of public decision-

making and strive to make sure our experts are giving a fair and appropriate portrayal of the

information they possess.

4. In matters related to science, William Sutherland, David Speigelhalter and Mark

Burgman go so far as to claim that expert opinion, whether in narrative or highly empirical form,

is not helpful with political decision-making at all and instead serves to skew public perception

of the issues even further.43 According to these scholars, possessing accurate knowledge yourself

is not as important as being able to “intelligently interrogate” experts. They also encourage us to

be aware of the inherent biases and limitations of scientific evidence, no matter how many

studies have been completed.44 If our experts are not providing all of the available data to

participants, it may cause them to believe there are fewer choices for action than actually exist.

The role of the expert is not to constrain choices, but to present as many relevant facts as

necessary to equip citizens with the appropriate knowledge to approach all of the choices and

decisions available to them.

5. Finally, expert presence in an event runs the risk of skewing public perception of the

issue too far to one side due to the very issues described above. If citizens feel as though their

narratives are not valued in a public forum, they will become overly pessimistic about the

43 William Sutherland, David Speigelhalter and Mark Burgman, November 20, 2013. “Policy: Twenty Tips for

Interpreting Scientific Claims.” Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. Accessed April 23, 2015.

http://www.nature.com/news/policy-twenty-tips-for-interpreting-scientific-claims-1.14183 44 Ibid

27

process itself and have little concern about the outcome of their discussions. Extreme pessimism

can also result from an expert placing too much limitation on the public’s choices for action. On

the other hand, if we allow experts to cherry-pick facts that paint a rosy picture for one specific

course of action, the public’s perception of the issue may be skewed too far into optimism. Item

five helps us understand how all of these negatives are interrelated and can work in tandem to

create numerous negative impacts in our events.

While it is important to discuss the negative impacts experts can have on a deliberative

conversation if they are not utilized properly, I must also qualify this conversation with the

assertion we cannot exclude experts from events as a means to mitigate their negative impacts.

We must consider what can happen to reasoned conversation when experts are entirely absent.

We certainly cannot apply the same standards of knowledge and reason to both experts and the

public, but what standards should we have for our conversations? It is commonly known that

members of the public are more likely to view sensational, overly dramatized happenings in

society as more frequently occurring than they are in reality. Often in democratic discussions,

especially those entirely absent of experts, opinion is allowed to take the place of knowledge

when information is not available.45 This opinion runs the risk of being detrimental to truly

democratic conversation when it is viewed in the same light as researched and supported expert

knowledge. In falling too far on the side of equality and inclusion we run the risk of playing into

the hands of anti-intellectualism, which is causing great damage to reasoned democracy.

Positive Impacts of Expert Presence

45 Daniel Yankelovich, 1991. Coming to Public Judgement: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World.

Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 46

28

Frank Fischer asked in 2003: “to what degree can scientific [expert] practices be

democratized?”46 He acknowledged in his work that democracy and science are two defining

values of Western society that are inextricably linked whether we like it or not. The trouble

comes from trying to ask practitioners and experts to work together in public forums in a way

that is beneficial to our participants and democratic conversations. For Fischer, public

participation in policy-related discussions is a way for the public to build more trust in the

decisions made by government. Most of us in the field likely agree with him on this point; when

citizens are invited to discuss the ways in which a certain policy impacts their lives and are given

an opportunity to voice their support or concern, they are left feeling as though they played some

sort of role in the final result. Even if the decision does not go their way, there will at least be

some sense of understanding about the process. However, these discussions can be made more

productive with the presence of experts who can serve many important roles if they fully

understand how the deliberative process works. If we can build a strong practitioner-expert

relationship, ideally the expert would be able to do five things during a deliberative process:

1. Explain the history and current reality of the issue

2. Address myths and misinformation to help move the conversation along

3. Go against cherry-picking

4. Provide information about the causes/effects related to choices

5. Reorient us to reality by balancing extreme pessimism with extreme optimism

1. In order for our participants to fully understand the issue, discussing the history of the

issue at hand is essential. Many participants in our forums may have only just begun to follow

the issue we are working through so they will necessarily need additional information about how

the issue came to be and what we have done about the issue up to our current discussion. In any

46 Fisher, Frank. Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Delberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 205

29

case, all the information needs to be presented clearly, so our participants understand the reason

for their attendance and the impact their opinions and participation will have on the current issue.

2. We should also expect experts to present facts in a way that will help address any

misperceptions participants have coming into an event. Often, it may be as simple as introducing

the expert and allowing them to address facts and information related to the issue before

conversation commences in break out groups. Sometimes, however, we may need a roving

expert on hand to answer questions within those breakout groups, which will allow the group to

move on quickly rather than continuing to argue about information that is not factually

accurate.47 In order to do this, we must remember what the research shows about confirmation

bias and be willing to accept some of our participants will not change their perceptions or stances

based only on the facts our experts shared; however, it is important we do not allow

conversations to be derailed for too long by inaccurate information. This is where experts play an

integral role because facilitators cannot intervene in such a way, lest their impartiality be called

into question.

3. We also want to ensure our experts are fairly presenting the information to our

participants. This means some extra legwork on our part in the beginning stages of process

design. In choosing experts and meeting with them about events, we should be privy to all the

information they wish to share during our event. In examining this information, we should make

sure it appears to be a fair presentation of a variety of facts related to the issue at hand. We must

also make sure the expert is willing to provide extended resources to any participants that wish to

do future research at the end of any event. Time constraints will always be a struggle for

47 Martin Carcasson and Leah Sprain, “Democratic Engagement through the Ethic of Passionate Impartiality.”

Tamara (2013) 19-20.

30

deliberative practitioners, making it impossible to share everything we would like in all of our

events, but we must be willing to provide additional resources to any participant who would like

more information.

4. This conversation can then lead into a presentation or discussion of the realistic

choices we have for action. Sometimes, the choices will be less related to action and more in line

with joining a focus group or task force. An expert should be fully capable of providing these

realistic and suitable choices for action. While we do not want them to constrain choices, their

input is important in helping our citizens be aware of the potential positives and negatives

associated with the choices available to them. If the expert clearly explains the issue and fairly

addresses all of the available choices are participants will be equipped with the knowledge

necessary to make an informed and community-focused decision.

5. If all the previous roles are filled appropriately, the expert should successfully be able

to keep participants of the forum balanced in terms of pessimism and optimism. Presenting facts

fairly, clearly explaining the history of the issue and presenting realistic choices for action should

all work in tandem to make participants feel comfortable with the issue. While we do not want

them to be overly optimistic about any of the options provided, we also do not want them to

leave our event feeling as though there is no solution to the issue they just spent several hours of

their day discussing.

Navigating the Expert Dilemma

Grappling with how to navigate the expert dilemma in multiple phases of our events can

prove to be somewhat difficult. As the previous discussion shows, experts are an important part

of public discussions, especially if those matters are related to public policy. However, we can

31

also see how the presence of experts creates the risk of foreclosing truly democratic discussion

among participants who are not experts. Our task is to figure out how to negotiate these tensions

to determine how best to incorporate experts for all their positives while still allowing for

engaged discussion among our participants. As deliberative practitioners, our ultimate goal

should be to create a culture of deliberation and mutual respect among citizens and experts alike.

It is by properly incorporating experts this can be achieved. Expert testimony can provide our

citizens with important facts necessary to allow them to consider and explain the reasoning

behind their stance. We want to know why our citizens feel the way they do, not simply that they

agree or disagree with a proposed action. Expert knowledge can help our citizens build their case

and contribute fully to the deliberative process.

Educating the Community and Experts on the Expert Dilemma

The first step of navigating this dilemma involves education about the way deliberation

should work in a community forum. Perhaps the best way to make sure experts and other

participants work together is to create opportunities for community training which is open to the

public. Ideally, these events would be on-going workshops in which public participants could

collaborate with experts and practitioners in a lower-stakes environment where we are simply

asking the community to engage with the tensions related to the expert dilemma. Several

sessions would allow practitioners and their facilitators to equip the community and experts alike

with deliberative skills and explain how the deliberative process works prior to inviting them to

the real-time discussions. Trainings would begin by allowing all participants to introduce

themselves and explain their previous experience with deliberation and by allowing experts

present to discuss their credentials. The introduction process allows the public and experts alike

to begin viewing one another as people rather than “laypeople” or “experts”. After introductions

32

are complete, we can move to unique sessions addressing particular parts of the expert dilemma.

The most helpful place to go from here would be an overall session explaining what deliberation

is. During this session, the practitioner would explain the ground rules, the purpose of a

deliberative process and the expectations for conversation amongst experts and participants.

Other workshops can address such topics as expert jargon and how experts can make information

accessible to non-experts, how experts can address misinformation about specific community

conversations before they take place, and running mock processes that allow experts to become

comfortable with their expected role in deliberative processes. None of these workshops can be a

one-time event. It is important we continue the community conversation by holding several

unique training sessions, always incorporating a discussion on how deliberation works, but

incorporating new sessions related to the expert dilemma in each.

The benefit of training citizens and experts together is that additional time for dialogue to

begin working on a trusting relationship. Allowing citizens to participate in these trainings

alongside experts can build an important sense of trust that we must consistently try to replicate

in forums in the community at-large. Fischer reminds us of the invaluable contributions the

public participants can make to conversations alongside experts. We will often find that many of

the issues that arise when discussing public policy cannot be fully examined using expert

methods alone; we have to examine them through many filters.48 This training will also allow

citizens to work alongside experts to help them rework some of their technical language in order

to make it more accessible to our participants. If we work together on their presentation and the

48 Frank Fisher. Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Delberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 205

33

language they use, we could insure the issue becomes no more complex than the running of a

small businesses or family.49

Experts and the public will be able to grapple directly with this dilemma and their

conversations will provide helpful insight to practitioners about what the public and experts need

in our forums. Facilitators and practitioners should treat this as a regular forum, being present to

aid discussion and take notes about things being said among their groups. After this open

discussion has been completed, a report-out of initial reactions to the expert dilemma as we have

framed it will allow everyone in the room to be exposed to different feelings about the issue.

Having reactions from the community will then allow us to reframe our approach if necessary.

These forums will also provide us with the opportunity to discuss the danger of assuming

that all opinions are created equal. We should explain to citizens and experts the importance of

inclusion while also helping them remember that the experts in the room are invited for a reason

and their specialized skills should remain valuable to us. Of course, a respectful discussion

between all participants is what we strive for in a deliberative forum, but we must help citizens

understand the important role experts can play in many of our discussions. In relation to this, we

should help members of the community learn how to interrogate information provided by experts

and fellow participants to determine its usefulness and truthfulness. Debilyn Molineaux of

Living Room Conversations provides us with an insightful way of explaining how to do this: we

can explain to our participants that opinions can be evaluated based upon their “basis in fact, and

their demonstration of dignity, empathy and/or compassion.” This tactic is respectful and helps

emphasize many of the issues at the heart of our expert dilemma. Introducing these criteria to our

49 Frank Fisher. Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Delberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 209

34

participants and the experts in the room will equip them with useful tools they can utilize in

many of their conversations.

If we do these things for our community prior to our events, then perhaps we can attempt

to “inoculate” our participants and the process as a whole from falling victim to the extremes of

the expert dilemma.50 On the other side of this, however, is the issue of time. Often, community

members and experts do not have the time for such events so sometimes we will be forced to

address the expert dilemma directly prior to an event. This is not ideal, considering the

complexities of the dilemma, but it certainly needs to be discussed in order to better equip

participants for the process. Ultimately, it falls in the hands of the practitioner to make sure the

experts and public are brought together in meaningful ways prior to deliberative events. It is not

always possible for extended trainings on the expert dilemma, but building the relationship

between experts and the community is essential. As practitioners, the most helpful thing we can

do for ourselves and for our communities is be idealistic. We want to make sure our trainings and

events act as models for the way we hope experts and citizens can communicate with one

another. Training the public and experts on the expert dilemma is but the first step in this

modeling process.

Finally, in attempting to negotiate the tensions between expert involvement through of

trainings, we must address what Daniel Yankelovich termed the “quality-as-information” trap.51

He asks us to consider a form of public judgment in which quality can be defined by

participants’ ability to demonstrate they understand the consequences of their judgments and

50 There is much literature available on Inoculation Theory. The following provides a helpful overview of the theory

itself along with many other theories: Kenzie Cameron, “A Practitioner’s Guide to Persuasion: An Overview of 15

Selected Persuasion Theories, Models and Frameworks.” Patient Education and Counseling, 74 (2009), 309-317 51 Daniel Yankelovich. 1991. Coming to Public Judgement: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World.

Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 44

35

convictions. The focus here is less on information in this context. Clearly, we do not want the

participants in our forums to be experts on any given situation, but Yankelovich asserts we need

a move toward a clearly delineated difference between expert and public.52 It is incredibly

important that as practitioners we never lose sight of the fact we can engage roomfuls of

intelligent and energized citizens as long as we have these differences marked. After we explain

the expert dilemma to our participants, we can address the importance of these differences and

stress the worry that “people can easily become invisible in the discourse between policy wonks

and scientists.”53 With this community training, we can make sure our citizens are not made

invisible by the experts in the room because they will have already had a chance to engage in

dialogues with one another.

Carefully Choosing Experts

After the community and experts have been given the opportunity to discuss the expert

dilemma, we then must move forward with designing events equipped to navigate this dilemma.

Essentially, as practitioners we need to do some research on experts in the field related to our

forum issue. Often in our community forums, an expert presence does not seem necessary. In

these cases, experts are not invited. However, when our community is brought together to

discuss action steps and may struggle with fact questions, it is useful to incorporate experts. We

must be able to determine beforehand whether an expert presence will be necessary by asking

ourselves a few questions: What is the purpose of the event? What information do citizens

already have about this issue? If an expert is present, what useful information could they provide

52 Daniel Yankelovich. 1991. Coming to Public Judgement: Making Democracy Work in a Complex World.

Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 45 53 Roland Jackson, December, 4 2013. “12 Things Policy Makers and Scientists Should Know About the Public.”

The Guardian. Accessed April 28, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/dec/04/12-

things-policy-makers-and-scientists-should-know-about-the-public

36

to enhance our conversations? If an event is billed as simply a pilot process to gather public input

about something that might be done in the future, it may not be helpful to invite an expert.

However, if the process is related to plans that have already been designed and may be put into

place, this is where an expert presence can help citizens work through important issues.

Once we have determined whether we need an expert, we then must consider our options.

Often, the most obvious choice will be those individuals who have written or designed plans or

perhaps experts who work in an industry related to our discussions. In any case, we must make

sure their credentials are publicly available. Inviting experts to meet prior to events can allow us

ask questions related to their credentials and introduce them to important concepts related to the

deliberative process. Much like we can train the community about the expert dilemma, we can

also introduce this problem to our experts. If we can discuss the expert dilemma candidly with

sanctioned experts prior to events, it will equip them with the necessary tools to make sure our

conversations stay on track. It will also help them clearly understand their role. In our initial

meeting, the role of this expert should be clearly defined. Once our experts are equipped with a

working knowledge of deliberation and have a clear sense of their role, we can then include them

in the planning stages of our deliberative events.

Involving Experts in the Planning Process

Community training is important, but if we are going to take the time to train our

participants, we should also take the time to train experts and involve them in our planning

processes. Experts should, without a doubt, be invited and encouraged to attend planning

sessions in which facilitators can ask questions they think may come up. During this time, the

practitioner should also clearly delineate boundaries for experts and facilitators alike so there is

no confusion about how to properly intervene in certain circumstances. This will require all

37

parties involved to create a plan of action for how to handle misinformation at a facilitated table.

It should be clear to sanctioned experts that control of much of the conversation will rest in the

facilitator’s hands. We should advise experts to be respectful of our ground rules and respectful

of democratic discussion overall. If an expert is called upon to correct misinformation they are

not allowed to dominate the conversation and our small group discussion cannot become a

question and answer session.54 The imperative here should be allowing the facilitator and expert

to work together to solve these issues quickly and allow the expert to move on, which is exactly

what happened in the example of the 2015 Community Issues Forum example provided earlier in

the paper.

While we do not want misinformation to dominate any conversation, we also do not want

any one person, especially an expert, to dominate a conversation. Our responsibility as

practitioners is to protect our process while building and maintaining a safe space in which all

participants feel comfortable having a dialogue. Expert intervention is slightly dangerous in this

sense, but it highlights the importance of allowing facilitators to take charge when an expert is

invited to discuss any information that is up for debate. We may find that by giving facilitators

the power to ask an expert to cut their discussion short community members at the table will see

how valuable their participation truly is in the process. This will also allow us to keep experts in-

check to ensure they are staying within the boundaries of their role. Providing this power to

facilitators can also help them maintain their passionate impartiality. The central focus should

remain on the facilitated discussion as much as possible. This allows our facilitators to model

democratic attitudes and skills.55 In listening attentively to the expert answer and recruiting them

54 Martin Carcasson, “The Deliberative Facilitator: Reimagining Facilitator Responsibilities for Deliberative

Practice.” Kettering Foundation. 55 Ibid

38

to engage in discussion about a matter of contention at the table, facilitators show their ability

and willingness to share the conversation. However, once the expert has answers the question,

asking them to exit the conversation is a move to preserve the democratic discussion happening

at the table rather than allowing it to become an expert with talking points foreclosing on true

dialogue.

Another way to experiment with forum design as it relates to this dilemma is to attempt to

have experts present at each table. This one may be difficult as experts are narrow by definition,

so it may be that we have an expert with a different specialization at each table. This could

potentially allow facilitators to keep their conversations on track without stopping to wait for an

expert wandering the room to make it to the table and help us grapple with a question. Making

the expert part of the forum also helps the facilitator maintain control of the situation and allows

them to better fulfill many of their responsibilities. We may find difficulty in finding the proper

number of experts for this particular design, however, as some small community offices only

have one expert they can spare for a deliberative forum. Engaging experts in the forum itself may

be something more easily accomplished by a larger community or perhaps at a large event in

which numerous experts on the same topic have traveled to be involved. This speaks to the

importance of building community and national ties as a deliberative practitioner. Perhaps in our

small communities, we only know of one or two experts on a certain policy topic. If we are able

to reach out to a broader community of experts, we may be able to encourage them to attend our

forums. Of course, a design of this type will require a considerable amount of extra work for

experts and practitioners, but it may be something for us all to consider for future forums as we

attempt to address our expert dilemma and help the community overcome their distrust of expert

opinion.

39

Conclusion

As the lengthy discussion above shows, navigating the expert dilemma in our deliberative

forums will certainly not be an easy task, but forcing ourselves to consider the ways in which we

can negotiate the many tensions involved with experts will be incredibly beneficial to those folks

who are participating in our forums. More than that, it will be incredibly beneficial to our

democratic processes. Coming to terms with this dilemma and working through its numerous

facets as a field will equip us with more tools to address the polarization that exists within our

society. Much of what is discussed here places quite a burden on the deliberative practitioner.

This is not taken lightly, but if we are truly invested in informed and productive democratic

conversations, we must be willing to put forth a considerable amount of effort. If we expect our

participants to work alongside experts and form a sense of understanding, we must take the first

step in insuring these experts are the best available and that they can be brought on board with

our deliberative processes. Time will always be a constraint deliberative practitioners face in this

work, but time spent improving the conversation between experts and the public will be time

well spent.

The scholarship discussed within these pages is but a small percentage of the mountains

of scholarship we have available relating to experts, deliberation and misinformation. What I

hope is that this paper serves as a catalyst for further discussion into expert involvement in

deliberative forums and an encouragement for the deliberative community to look further into

this compelling scholarship as we continue to innovate. The suggested methods of navigating the

expert dilemma are by no means set in stone and aim to encourage lively discussion about how

we can improve our community conversations, why some of the proposed solutions may not be

feasible in all communities and, finally, how some of these methods could prove to be incredibly

40

helpful to the field. In the end, we should work as a field to utilize our forums as examples of

how we hope democratic conversations can work. This means we must work to incorporate

experts in our events in a way that maximized their benefits and helps reinvigorate trust between

citizens and experts alike. Most of our struggles relating to the expert dilemma boil down to

tensions between values. When we open up forums to discuss these values, we can begin

equipping our citizens with necessary tools to be fully engaged in the democratic process and

potentially help them become willing to fairly interrogate the information provided by all

experts, not just the experts who agree with their worldviews.

This paper focused specifically on the role of the deliberative practitioner in navigating

the expert dilemma, but future research should also examine more deeply the role of the

facilitator during events. While it is the practitioner’s job to train the community and design an

event that utilizes experts in the best possible way, it is important to consider how the facilitator

can work on navigating the expert dilemma in the middle of an event and also the training

involved with making sure our facilitators are equipped with the appropriate knowledge to do so.

41

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