Emotions and Deliberation in the Citizens’ Initiative Review

Objective Emotions in deliberative democratic practices have been of interest to researchers and practitioners of democracy for years. Yet, scholars have not fully analyzed emotions in this context. We advance this discussion in terms of both data collection and analysis with respect to Citizens' Initiative Reviews (CIRs) in Arizona, Oregon, and Massachusetts in 2016. We respond to four central research questions: (1) What discrete emotions do participants report experiencing during mini‐public deliberation? (2) How do the reported emotions vary across the period of deliberation? (3) How do the expressed emotions affect the deliberation? and (4) What work do expressed emotions do in mini‐publics in terms of helping or hindering deliberation? Methods To ensure a comprehensive analysis of the data we were able to collect, we employ a mixed‐methods design and use both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results and Conclusion Ultimately, we contend that the activities and tasks of the group, as well as the behaviors of participants and relationships among them, are all important factors that shape how people experience emotion, but that the CIR procedures have the greatest influence in mediating emotions to serve the ends of deliberation in these mini‐publics.