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Deliberative minipublics are popular tools to address the current crisis in democracy. However, it remains ambiguous to what degree these small-scale forums matter for mass democracy. In this study, we ask the question to what extent minipublics have "spillover effects" on lay citizens—that is, long-term effects on participating citizens and effects on non-participating citizens. We answer this question by means of a systematic review of the empirical research on minipublics' spillover effects published before 2019. We identify 60 eligible studies published between 1999 and 2018 and provide a synthesis of the empirical results. We show that the evidence for most spillover effects remains tentative because the relevant body of empirical evidence is still small. Based on the review, we discuss the implications for democratic theory and outline several trajectories for future research.

Why do citizens (not) support democratic innovations (DIs)? Existing research shows that citizens mostly support such new ways of involving citizens in policy-making for instrumental reasons: the more a DI leads to outcomes they favour, the more likely they are to express support for it. However, it remains ambiguous why citizens care so much about favourable outcomes. This study disentangles the effect of outcome favourability on support for DIs by testing two mechanisms: self-interest and sociotropy. It relies on three survey experiments on Dutch citizens' support for a local DI (participatory budgeting) (N = 2,491). The results confirm that outcome favourability is important in explaining citizens' support for participatory budgets (Study 1). We find evidence for both self-interest (Study 2) and sociotropy (Study 3) as drivers of the effect and present preliminary evidence that self-interest may trump sociotropy in citizens' evaluations of DIs.

How can online government platforms meet principles of inclusivity and deliberation? We reflect on this question based on a recent case of online participatory budgeting in a neighborhood of The Hague, the Netherlands (Duinoord Begroot). In terms of inclusivity, our findings suggest that sending out personal invitations and setting few voting requirements can contribute to online voting rates. Furthermore, the use of few participation criteria in the initial stages of the process can enhance the diversity of gathered ideas. In terms of deliberation, we discuss how the structure of an online platform may 'nudge' citizens towards deliberation. The results indicate that while the platform generated an equal distribution of arguments in favor of and against proposals, it did not engage citizens en masse in online discussions. We suggest that building incentives and feedback loops into the platform could address this limitation.

Policy-makers are increasingly experimenting with various ways to involve citizens in policy-making. Deliberative forums composed of lay citizens (minipublics) count among the most popular of such innovations. Despite their popularity, it is often unclear in what ways such minipublics could affect policy-making. This article addresses this issue of conceptual ambiguity by drawing on an original systematic review of the literature. It shows that the literature has approached these consequences in three ways: congruence with decisions, consideration in the policy-making process, and structural change. The article discusses the implications for empirical research and points out trajectories for future research on deliberative minipublics.

Minipublics count among the most celebrated democratic innovations. Scholars have extensively analysed the design and the internal dynamics of such forums that gather randomly selected citizens to discuss political issues. However, we still lack an understanding of how these innovations might influence the wider political system. This article introduces a new database (MINICON) covering 35 years of research on minipublics' consequences (1984–2018). Our findings suggest that most work has adopted a narrow view on these consequences, focusing on what happens within the direct proximity of a minipublic. We argue that future research needs to examine minipublics' more distant consequences if we are to assess their contributions to the functioning of mass democracies.

Minipublics count among the most celebrated democratic innovations. Scholars have extensively analysed the design and the internal dynamics of such forums that gather randomly selected citizens to discuss political issues. However, we still lack an understanding of how these innovations might influence the wider political system. This article introduces a new database (MINICON) covering 35 years of research on minipublics' consequences (1984–2018). Our findings suggest that most work has adopted a narrow view on these consequences, focusing on what happens within the direct proximity of a minipublic. We argue that future research needs to examine minipublics' more distant consequences if we are to assess their contributions to the functioning of mass democracies.

Minipublics count among the most celebrated democratic innovations. Scholars have extensively analysed the design and the internal dynamics of such forums that gather randomly selected citizens to discuss political issues. However, we still lack an understanding of how these innovations might influence the wider political system. This article introduces a new database (MINICON) covering 35 years of research on minipublics' consequences (1984–2018). Our findings suggest that most work has adopted a narrow view on these consequences, focusing on what happens within the direct proximity of a minipublic. We argue that future research needs to examine minipublics' more distant consequences if we are to assess their contributions to the functioning of mass democracies.

Studies of second-order elections using aggregate data have predominantly focused on examining the extent to which European parliament elections and regional elections are dominated by the national, first-order arena, and paid scarce attention to the analysis of municipal elections. In addition the study of second-order elections is dominated by looking at the impact of first-order factors whilst ignoring the impact of arena-specific factors. This article addresses these shortcomings by analyzing the impact of national and local factors on the performance of national parties in the Dutch municipal elections of 2010. Our analysis shows that there are significant effects of local factors. Most parties lose votes when having been in local government and in some cases as well when having in addition lost an alderman as a result of a political crisis. Parties also lose vote share as a result of the entrance of new national and local parties in a local election, with the effect of new national entrants being larger than that of new local entrants. Our analysis corroborates earlier findings that point to a dominance of national factors, while at the same time showing that it is vital to include local, arena specific factors in order to get to a better estimation of the second-orderness of non-national elections. We discuss our results with respect to the recurring debate about the nationalisation of the Dutch municipal elections. Adapted from the source document.