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AbstractAcademics and practitioners are increasingly interested in deliberative minipublics and whether these can address widespread dissatisfaction with contemporary politics. While optimism seems to prevail, there is also talk that the use of minipublics may backfire. When the government disregards a minipublic's recommendations, this could lead to more dissatisfaction than not asking for its advice in the first place. Using an online survey experiment in Belgium (n = 3,102), we find that, compared to a representative decision‐making process, a minipublic tends to bring about higher political support when its recommendations are fully adopted by the government, whereas it generates lower political support when its recommendations are not adopted. This study presents novel insights into whether and when the use of minipublics may alleviate or aggravate political dissatisfaction among the public at large.

AbstractPolitical representation does not function well for citizens whose positions on political issues differ from those of elected representatives. In this paper, we argue that opinion incongruence leads citizens to want to bypass elected representatives and place more decision‐making power in the hands of the public. We theorise that this is because incongruent citizens are highly dissatisfied with the existing political system and/or think they will benefit from direct decision‐making in terms of improved policy responsiveness. Using data from the 2019 Belgian Election Survey (n = 3413) and Party Leadership Survey, we find that greater incongruence between citizens' positions and those of their elected representatives is related to higher support for direct decision‐making. This holds for opinion incongruence with the party voted for and incongruence with Parliament as a whole. This paper contributes novel insights into the consequences of the quality of political representation as well as the drivers of citizens' support for direct decision‐making processes.

AbstractConcerns about widespread democratic dissatisfaction have prompted a search for remedies, such as increasing citizens' role in politics. While the public seems supportive, it remains unclear whether such newly introduced procedures can effectively tackle citizens' dissatisfaction with present‐day politics. This paper develops a problem‐solving approach to studying this question. It proposes that combining insights on what 'pushes' and 'pulls' people to support procedural reform is crucial: Only then can we uncover if and how people consider procedural reform as addressing the problem(s) they see in the representative system today. Using the example of deliberative minipublics and original, pre‐registered survey data from Belgium (n = 1,579), we find that respondents generally think of minipublics as problem‐solvers rather than problem‐creators, albeit to different degrees. For instance, this perceived problem‐solving potential is more pronounced among discontent citizens. This study sheds new light on the importance of studying citizens' reasoning about the roots and remedies for political dissatisfaction.

AbstractDeliberative minipublics are becoming increasingly popular, with both scholars and practitioners highlighting their potential to bolster public approval of political decision-making. Yet, it remains unclear whether minipublics are able to do so in contexts where the public itself is deeply divided – a concern which becomes only more relevant as levels of polarization are said to rise across the globe. In this study, we argue that polarized citizens may perceive minipublics and their outcomes as less legitimate than more moderate citizens. We use original survey data from Northern Ireland (n= 932), a highly polarized society where a minipublic was organized on the contentious issue of the region's constitutional future. We find that higher levels of ideological polarization and, to an extent, affective polarization are associated with lower levels of perceived minipublic legitimacy among the wider public, although effects are small. This offers novel insights into the role of minipublics in polarized settings.

Many deliberative democrats herald the potential of minipublics to help improve the quality of democratic decision-making. Yet these democratic innovations present a paradox: how can the use of minipublics be perceived as legitimate by the maxi-public when most citizens cannot participate? In this article, we address this question in the context of Lafont's argument that minipublics amount to 'shortcuts' in the democratic process. We challenge this argument by hypothesising that non-participants perceive minipublics to be legitimate when they perceive minipublic participants to be like them – and when they perceive politicians to be unlike them. Similarly, we expect that the relative importance of descriptive similarity will be related to the issue in question. We test our hypotheses in the deeply divided context of Northern Ireland, where a minipublic was held on the salient and contentious question of the polity's constitutional future. Survey evidence confirms that 'like me' perceptions constitute a significant predictor of minipublic legitimacy perceptions. Our results have implications for the communication of minipublic features to the broader public, for the use of minipublics alongside conventional decision-making processes, and for further empirical research.

Many deliberative democrats herald the potential of minipublics to help improve the quality of democratic decision-making. Yet these democratic innovations present a paradox: how can the use of minipublics be perceived as legitimate by the maxi-public when most citizens cannot participate? In this article, we address this question in the context of Lafont's argument that minipublics amount to 'shortcuts' in the democratic process. We challenge this argument by hypothesising that non-participants perceive minipublics to be legitimate when they perceive minipublic participants to be like them – and when they perceive politicians to be unlike them. Similarly, we expect that the relative importance of descriptive similarity will be related to the issue in question. We test our hypotheses in the deeply divided context of Northern Ireland, where a minipublic was held on the salient and contentious question of the polity's constitutional future. Survey evidence confirms that 'like me' perceptions constitute a significant predictor of minipublic legitimacy perceptions. Our results have implications for the communication of minipublic features to the broader public, for the use of minipublics alongside conventional decision-making processes, and for further empirical research.

Recently, studies have burgeoned on the link between populism and demands fordemocratic reforms. In particular, scholars have been debating the link betweenpopulist citizens or voters and support for referendums. In this article, we examinevoters of populist parties (Vlaams Belang (VB) and Parti du Travail de Belgique-Partij van de Arbeid (PTB-PVDA)) in Belgium in 2019 and we look at their attitudestowards various types of democratic reforms. We find that voters of populistparties differ from the non-populist electorate in their support for different kindsof reforms of representative democracy. Voters of VB and PTB-PVDA have in commonstronger demands for limiting politicians' prerogatives, for introducingbinding referendums and for participatory budgeting. While Vlaams Belang votersare not significantly different from the non-populist electorate on advisory referendums,citizens' forums or technocratic reform, PVDA-PTB voters seem more enthusiastic. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published