Events

Public health emergencies involve high-stakes, time-sensitive decision-making. These features make public input both normatively attractive and practically difficult. This talk asks: what forms of public input, if any, should governments seek under such conditions? Drawing on the COVID-19 pandemic, Bernstein distinguishes three models of governance. The Technocratic Model holds that, for much of an emergency, policy should be guided primarily by a small cadre of experts, with limited public input. While this approach has clear advantages in speed and coordination, it fails to take persistent normative disagreement sufficiently seriously.

In response to these shortcomings, proponents of what Bernstein calls the Formal Deliberative Model advocate the use of mini-publics or other formally convened citizen bodies to advise decision-makers. Although attractive in principle, he argues that key features of public health emergencies significantly limit the feasibility, responsiveness, and epistemic value that the Formal Deliberative Model typically enjoys. Finally, drawing on recent work on informal representation, Bernstein sketches the Informal Consultation Model, which emphasizes structured engagement with community leaders and intermediaries. He contends that when properly designed, this model can retain many of the attractive features of the Formal Deliberative Model while remaining responsive to the constraints of emergency governance. He concludes by sketching some practical guidelines and directions for future research.