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This text explores why naïve ideals about better policymaking persist even in cynical times, revealing the careful reflection at the heart of what appears to be 'magical thinking' in public policy, and offering new insights into the continuing appeal of such ideals.

This paper presents a participant-observation account of my experience as a randomly selected participant at a Citizens' Assembly. I reflect on what the unique experience of 'seeing like a citizen' can add to accepted understandings and practices of mini-public deliberation. I find that the experience, though energising, exciting and ultimately hugely worthwhile, also upended many of my prior assumptions grounded in academic scholarship and previous experience as an observer, facilitator and organiser of such events. I draw on the experience to shed new light on the capacity of assembled citizens to: accurately reflect the concerns of the broader community; soberly digest and reflect on evidence; earnestly engage in reasoned argumentation with one another; carefully reach sophisticated or thought-through recommendations as a collective; or ultimately gain a broader sense of efficacy from their engagement as individuals. The point in making these observations is not to critique moves toward democratic innovation (or the specific Citizens' Assembly I was a part of), but to push forward scholarship and practice to respond and adapt to these little considered challenges.

Policy and administration scholars have struggled to explain the waxing and waning of arm's-length bodies over time and across contexts. This article draws on the science and technology studies's concept of boundary work – understood as practices which both demarcate and enable collaboration across distinct areas of expertise – to help explain variation in these institutional arrangements. Conceptualising arm's-length bodies as boundary organisations shows how their authority rests on their capacity to enable ongoing coordination while preserving the authority and autonomy of relevant expert spheres. The article demonstrates this analytical purchase through reference to two cases in contemporary British government.

There is widespread skepticism among policy scholars and practitioners about the move to rationalize policy making: The naive vision of "evidence‐based policy" is often contrasted with the reality of "policy‐based evidence." Yet, the language of evidence‐based policy making (EBPM) continues to dominate policy debate about complex and contested issues. In this paper, I explore this apparent paradox by looking at what makes EBPM such a useful myth for all sorts of policy actors. I do so with reference to the pioneering work of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), focusing specifically on its work in relation to bariatric surgery, a suite of controversial and drastic weight loss procedures. I show that the myth of EBPM has political, pragmatic, and procedural utility in practice, allowing the organization to set and administer guidelines on this uncertain, complex, and contested treatment in ways that sustain buy‐in and enable ongoing contestation.

Key theorists and scholars of democracy have focused on understanding and enhancing the institutions and practices that shape decision-making. Indeed, the most influential contemporary normative account—the deliberative version—though increasingly adapted to the complex realities of contemporary politics, retains a tight focus on the conditions of legitimate will formation. This remains the core underpinning of the normative impetus for innovation and reform in contemporary democratic politics. Yet missing from even the adapted deliberative account is detailed consideration of what happens after will formation. I turn here to the policy and administration literature to show how the inescapably attritional and opaque policy process can magnify asymmetries that theorists and scholars of contemporary democracy, chief among them deliberative democrats, ought to be much better attuned to. I argue that in failing to consider these problems adequately, contemporary democratic thinkers, scholars, and reformers risk lending legitimacy to institutions and practices that might sustain the very biases they are mobilized against. As such, I identify institutional innovations and governing practices that can embed aspects of democratic deliberation "downstream" in the policy process in order to counter distortions and rebalance asymmetries. I conclude by calling for theorists, researchers, and reformers to explore the value of these institutions and practices, and to expand the repertoire of governing mechanisms available to counter the distortions that occur through the policy process.