The Importance of Context and the Effect of Information and Deliberation on Opinion Change Regarding Environmental Issues in Citizens’ Juries

Citizens’ juries have become a popular method for engaging citizens in deliberation about complex public policy issues, such as climate action and sustainable development. Empirical evidence routinely indicates that jurors change their minds throughout the process. What is less clear when why this occurs whether causes are consistent across consider same topic but situated within different contexts. We present of opinion citizens’ through natural experiment, contrasting three local contexts onshore windfarm development Scotland; viz. existing, planned, absent. Jurors’ individual opinions change, wind energy, windfarms were measured questionnaires at four time points: start, following information-giving, reflection, deliberation. Statistical examination jurors’ responses, paired sample t-tests, Wilcoxon sign-tests, Generalised Least Squares regression, reveals to what extent substantive changes associated with phases locational In all juries, process, on topics, degrees. While information phase consistently influences most, jury composition affects magnitude direction outcomes contingent Our findings important informing how mini-publics designed used inform environmental policy-making scales.