Qualitative—not Quantitative—Deliberative Polling ?

The last twenty years have seen the emergence of a new generation of polls: the deliberative polls. Unlike usual polling, deliberative polling—first suggested by Fishkin and Luskin—emphasizes not only the representation of polling but also the deliberation. The deliberative poll attempts to represent all in a given population, through a statistical microcosm empowered to think about the issues in question under favorable conditions—the sample population takes a questionnaire, then is informed through a learning process that alternates discussions in small groups and with experts and politicians, and eventually re-takes the same questionnaire.
Although—quantitative—deliberative polling catches the big picture—what people think before and after and how their opinions vary, it hardly gives any insight on why the citizens change their opinions and, above all, what it means after the learning process. This question is especially important in topics where little change of opinions may be expected such as political preferences and identities. Specifically, the qualitative deliberative polling is used to explore the relationship between the citizens’ perception (understood as knowledge, legitimacy, identity, and perception of the others) of the federal government in both Belgium and Canada and their federal preferences vis-à-vis the evolution of the regime.
Conducting qualitative and quantitative deliberative polling in those cases seem to offer the best result since the quantitative aspect provides a general picture of the change of opinions while the qualitative aspect endeavors to understand the change of opinions. Qualitative deliberative polling relies on a systematic qualitative content analysis of the focus groups’ discussions and interaction between the participants and the experts. To combine qualitative methods with—quantitative—deliberative polling has the potential to provide a finer picture of the citizens’ opinions on a broad variety of topics and issues.