The last two chapters tracked through the Citizens Council meetings chronologically, generating a blow-by-blow account of how one community of practice grappled with the challenge of democratic deliberation. It turned out to be a much more contingent process than anyone might have suspected (including perhaps a deliberation theorist). Deliberation emerges as fragile, as proceeding in fits and starts, as requiring a large amount of thoughtful nurturing and as permeated through and through with dilemmas of inclusion, control and engagement. This chapter, the last one using ethnographic data from the Council meetings, returns to some of the broader issues discussed in Chapter Two raised by critics of deliberation and the sceptics. These were concerns about power – both overt attempts by dominant groups to control the agenda and subtle effects of hegemonic discourse. There were also issues about interests and expertise, and there were questions of identity.

The first section of the chapter looks more closely at the terms through which the voices of minority ethnic group members of the Council were included in the Council and there are issues here about negotiating pluralism relevant to any deliberative assembly. The second section then examines some of the discursive styles deployed by members of the Council to deal with the new context they found themselves in, and picks up the question of the influence of hegemonic discursive genres. Finally, we turn to the nature of the ‘citizen identity’ in contexts where experts are present and citizens are ‘being informed’. Can a collective citizen voice emerge within such a frame? Overall, we engage with some of the implicit and explicit social-psychological assumptions contained in the conventional models and ideals before outlining in Part III a new conceptualisation of deliberation as a dialogic discursive practice.

Pluralism, ground rules and ‘politeness’

One key aim for deliberative initiatives is that they entail more than a conversation among the like-minded, simply validating participants’ existing views. A deliberative forum tries to construct a group with diverse interests, positions and life experiences representative of the diversity of the wider population. Through engaging with different viewpoints, respectfully listening and being open to persuasion, a better and more inclusive solution to a dilemma might arise beyond ‘business as usual’, reflecting more than just the standpoint of any one interest group.