The Genre of Deliberative Guidance: Rhetoric and Deliberation in Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements

Abstract

During the last decade, the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) has offered an innovative design to incorporate citizen deliberation into ballot initiative elections, using a citizens’ jury process to evaluate evidence and write an advisory CIR Statement on the measure for public engagement. This analysis turns attention to the Statements, and applying genre analysis, identifies an emerging genre of deliberative guidance. We argue that the genre of deliberative guidance invites readers to engage in a hermeneutic process of interpretation and decision making on ballot measures. We identify three components of the genre, offering evaluation and insights for deliberative design and practice.

Keywords:

• Deliberation
• deliberative guidance
• generic criticism
• mini-publics
• rhetoric

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank John Gastil and Laura Black for providing early feedback on this manuscript. Additionally, we would like to thank other members of the Citizens’ Initiative Review research team who have consistently supported this scholarship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Disclaimer

Any opinions, findings, recommendations, or conclusions expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the authors’ places of employment.

Notes

1. The category of “deliberative” rhetoric dates back to Aristotle (2018), who divided public discourse into three: forensic, dealing with the past and typically considered to be found in the dealings of court systems; epideictic, dealing with the present situation and circumstances, commonly referenced as rhetorics of praise and blame; and deliberative, which Aristotle defined as a speech that “attempts either to persuade or dissuade, whether speaking in private or a public assembly” (Book I.3). In this sense, an orator’s deliberative rhetoric convinces their audience to either take or reject action.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara A. Mehltretter Drury

Sara A. Mehltretter Drury is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Director of the Democracy and Public Discourse Initiative at Wabash College.

John Rountree

John Rountree is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Assistant Director of the Center for Public Deliberation at the University of Houston-Downtown.