Decoding Democracy: Analysing Public Participation in Constitutional Reform with Deep Learning

Description

The project aimed to lay the groundwork for the development of an artificial intelligence tool, using machine learning methods, to aid state actors in systematically analysing the textual inputs provided by the public during constitutional reform processes, ultimately promoting democratic credentials of political decision-making by facilitating meaningful participation of the public. As part of this project, nearly 7,000 responses submitted to the Scottish Government’s 2016 consultation on a draft independence referendum bill were analysed using pre-trained models. The work included generic analyses of all responses as well as question-specific analyses

Period	7 Sept 2023
Event title	Scotland Showcase for The British Academy Early Career Researcher Network
Event type	Exhibition
Location	Stirling, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National