Katherine R. Knobloch has been studying the CIR since her doctoral dissertation, and she’s the lead author of the latest article on the CIR. Using two different large datasets, the new article in Political Studies shows that voter awareness and use of the CIR has distinct effects on their civic attitudes. Here’s the full abstract: Deliberative processes can alter participants’ attitudes and behavior, but deliberative minipublics...

This year, there is no statewide Oregon CIR, but there are a few experiments happening. Portland already hosted a CIR August 23-26 on a Housing bond measure on the ballot for the Portland metro area. Massachusetts CIR is holding a second pilot test of the process September 12-15 on Question 1, which concerns the maximum number of patients a nurse must attend to at a given time. A CIR test in California will take place Sept 27-30 on Proposition...

There will be two Citizens’ Initiative Reviews this year. In Oregon, a regional CIR is being run by Healthy Democracy, in partnership with Portland State University, Oregon Kitchen Table, and/or the University of Oregon Journalism School. That CIR will study an affordable housing bond measure referred to voters by the Metro Council–the regional government around Portland. It’ll happen August 23-26, and if anyone is interested...

2016 Oregon CIR panel, with facilitators Mike and Mary in top-right corner, and Gracie the Dog front-center. The 2016 iteration of the CIR is the fourth cycle of this process in Oregon, which began with the 2010 election. The result was a balanced statement (with an 11-9 split in the panelists’ vote) on Measure 97, which proposed a dramatic rise in gross receipts tax to boost the state’s general fund, which principally goes to...

A new article co-authored by three CIR researchers (Genevieve Fuji-Johnson, Laura Black, and Katherine Knobloch)  shows how citizens try to balance emotion and reason during their CIR deliberations. The article is now available in the journal Politics and Policy, which published a blog post on the article. The authors combined direct experience observing CIRs with careful examination of transcripts to reach a number of conclusions about citizen...

The Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) research project is a collaborative effort, involving a pair of principal investigators but dozens of graduate student and faculty colleagues who serve as authors and co-authors. Recent events involving falsified data in a prominent political science article have prompted me to reflect on the choice to lead research collaboratives the past several years. The original purpose for conducting the...