Deliberative Polling® on Environmental Issues

Deliberative Polling® provides a rigorous framework for investigating what informed, representative publics might conclude about environmental challenges under conditions of balanced information and facilitated discussion. This chapter presents the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of Deliberative Polling, illustrating how it transcends conventional public opinion surveys, focus groups, and other democratic innovations. Drawing on pioneering applications in Texas’s electric utilities, the authors show how Deliberative Polls can induce significant shifts in policy preferences, particularly toward clean energy and conservation initiatives, even when the broader population has yet to deliberate. They contrast Deliberative Polling’s reliance on large, stratified random samples, balanced briefing materials, and carefully structured debates with citizen assembly formats that may lack attitudinal representativeness and scientific rigor. Additionally, pre-post controls help isolate deliberation’s causal effects. Addressing Christina Lafont’s critiques, the chapter defends Deliberative Polling against accusations of “usurpation” by emphasizing its capacity to replace uninformed or “phantom” opinions with reasoned judgments. The authors conclude that, properly designed, Deliberative Polling offers a scientifically grounded, democratic method for eliciting credible public input on pressing environmental and policymaking decisions.