Minipublics in the hot seat: Contextualising the effects of minipublics on perceived political legitimacy among the public at large

Across established democracies, many citizens express disenchantment with present-day democracy and have little confidence in the existing representative system (Citrin & Stoker, 2018; Mansbridge, 2018). This gives rise to concerns about democracy’s stability and its ability to tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow (Tomassen & van Ham, 2017; van der Meer & Zmerli, 2017). An often-proposed response is to reform the process of political decision-making (Elstub & Escobar, 2019; Smith, 2009). In recent years, scholars and practitioners have taken an increased interest in deliberative minipublics (Dryzek et al., 2019; OECD, 2020). These minipublics consist of a small group of (quasi-)randomly selected citizens who come together to learn, deliberate and advise on a political issue (Curato et al., 2021; Goodin & Dryzek, 2006).

Can deliberative minipublics play a meaningful role in tackling deficits in perceived political legitimacy? Existing empirical works provide an optimistic outlook; they indicate that minipublics can bring about higher levels of perceived legitimacy among the population at large – i.e., among those who did not take part themselves (e.g., Boulianne, 2018b; Werner & Marien, 2022). Yet, this research is still in its early stages and focuses on minipublics as ideal-typical instances (Spada & Ryan, 2017; van der Does & Jacquet, 2023). This, however, does not match with how minipublics unfold in practice; minipublics in action are far from perfect (Oross & Tap, 2021; Parry et al., 2023). It is, therefore, of major importance to put minipublics in the hot seat – that is, to take account of the contingencies and complexities that exist in the real world when examining minipublics’ legitimacy-enhancing potential.

This dissertation takes an important next step in this debate by contextualising the effects of minipublics on the legitimacy beliefs of the public at large. It does so in two ways. First, this dissertation theorises and empirically tests if and how individual-level differences shape minipublics’ effects on the legitimacy beliefs of the wider public. It argues that the lens through which people perceive and understand the world around them may have ramifications for minipublics’ legitimacy-enhancing potential. The findings indicate that minipublics can foster perceived legitimacy among citizens who are dissatisfied with the existing political system, among those who are not as well as among those who are trusting of their fellow citizens in a political capacity – but minipublics fail to do so among those who have no such trust at all. As such, this dissertation shows that minipublics’ legitimacy-enhancing potential manifests for specific –but not all– citizens.

Second, this dissertation also takes account of the political context in which minipublics take place. Minipublics are only one part of many in the political arena; they exist alongside other actors such as political parties, think tanks, civil society, industry and advocacy groups. This dissertation argues that we need to consider how minipublics are embedded in our democracies and what  role they play in decision-making when examining their legitimacy-enhancing potential. Here, it focused on the uptake of minipublics in political decision-making; this is often highlighted as an important discrepancy between ideal-typical minipublics and how they unfold in practice. The findings suggest that minipublics’ impact on decision-making determines the direction of their effects; whether it fosters or erodes perceived political legitimacy. In fact, the use of minipublics may backfire if their recommendations are disregarded by decision-makers. In doing so, this dissertation is among the first to show that minipublics can also bring about lower levels of perceived legitimacy than not organising them in the first place.

All in all, this dissertation offers novel insights into the individual characteristics and political conditions under which minipublics can or cannot strengthen perceived political legitimacy among the broader public. This has important implications for the conditions under which minipublics can realise their legitimacy-enhancing potential in practice. This, in turn, highlights the relevance of taking account of the complex and messy reality in which minipublics are embedded when studying their effects on the legitimacy beliefs of the public at large – which was the core purpose of this dissertation.