誰來審議？台灣民眾對審議民主的支持程度和參與意願

Who Will Be Willing to Deliberate? Civic Talk, Social Capital and Deliberative Democracy in Taiwan

審議民主的實踐所遇到的重大挑戰，是如何制度化地整合到決策過程並影響政策決定。公民審議的制度化，有賴社會公眾的支持和參與，但既有文獻幾乎都沒有探究一般民眾對政府所發動、意圖影響政策的公民審議的支持程度和參與意願。本文以「台灣社會變遷基本調查」2014 年的調查結果，分析台灣民眾對公民審議的支持程度和參與意願。本文發現，由於特殊的政治脈絡因素，台灣民眾普遍支持公民審議，而且，對代議制度越不信任、對政黨功能和民主體制的運作現狀越不滿，以及越支持直接民主的人，越可能支持公民審議。本文也探究公民審議的參與意願、社團參與、日常公民討論和社會不平等的關係。本文發現，社團參與，以及日常生活的公民討論，能夠養成政治效能感、政治興趣和表達能力等公民心性與能力，提高人們參加正式的公民審議的意願。因此，活絡的公民社會以及日常的公民對話，能建構審議民主的公民文化基礎，強化社會公眾參與公民審議的意願。但本文也發現，性別與教育程度會影響公民心性與能力，因此公民審議的參與意願呈現不平等的現象，這是強調平等原則的審議民主，在實踐上必須面對和克服的問題。

Civic talk, social capital, and the practice of deliberative democracy, are said to be good for shaping active, democratic citizenship, but the relationships among the three have not been theoretically and empirically explored. This paper examines their relationships and the implications for inequality in citizen participation. Using data from a national survey conducted in Taiwan, this paper explores citizens’ support for and willingness to participate in government-organized deliberation. I found that 73% of respondents agreed with the idea that governments should convene citizen deliberation before making decisions on important issues, and 53% said that they would be willing to participate in such events. What accounts for the public willingness to deliberate? The results of statistical analysis show that : (1) Civic talk, defined as engagement in conversations about social events in informal settings, influenced the willingness to deliberate through the mediating effects of civic mindedness and skills (including political efficacy, political interest, political knowledge and communicative ability); (2) The number of those joining various types of voluntary associations also affects the willingness to deliberate, largely by producing mobilization effects on civic talk; and (3) Women and the less-educated are less willing to participate because of the mediating effects of gender and educational inequality in civic mindedness and skills. This paper thus found that civic talk and social capital can help construct a civic-culture foundation for deliberation, but inequality persists and needs to be overcome in the practice of deliberative democracy proclaimed to fulfill the ideal of political equality.