How to Improve the Effectiveness of Public Deliberation

This study focused on how to increase the effectiveness of deliberative governance. In particular, this study figures out the factors affecting the effectiveness of deliberative governance, both off-line and online. In order to figure out current practices of deliberative governance and provide recommendations toward authentic deliberative governance in Korea, this study developed several characteristics of citizen-government deliberation. More specifically, this study categorized deliberative governance into three groups such as off-line and on-line deliberation provided by government and on-line deliberation provided by news groups. Also, this study develops 5 characteristics of deliberation common to three categories and two more characteristics only to off-line and on-line deliberation provided by government. Five characteristics are full and thorough discussion, a comfortable and convenient setting, a comfortable and convenient time, the level of respecting other participants’ opinions, and the impact of social status on the discussion process. Furthermore, two more characteristics include satisfaction with response by public officials and anequal opportunity to influence the discussion. This research figured out that rather than on-line deliberation provided by either government or news group, off-line deliberation provided by government is still effective. The results show that the effectiveness of off-line deliberation provided by government is the highest. In addition, full and thorough discussion is more possible in the off-line deliberation provided by government rather than on-line deliberation provided by either government or news group.