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ABSTRACT
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.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Alan Renwick and the participants to the Frontiers of Democracy conference in Frankfurt am Main in 2018, the workshop The Consequences of Democratic Innovations in Louvain-la-Neuve in 2019, and the CESPOL seminar for their useful comments. We thank Océane Crabbé for her research assistance. We also thank the two anonymous referees and the editors of Representation for their feedback and suggestions.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The full database can be accessed at https://osf.io/qn5sm/.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Vincent Jacquet
Vincent Jacquet is a F.R.S.-FNRS post-doctoral reseracher at UCLouvain, Belgium. His main research interests include participatory governance, deliberative democracy, sortition and local politics.
Ramon van der Does
Ramon van der Does is a F.R.S.-FNRS PhD candidate at UCLouvain, Belgium. His research interests include democratic innovations, deliberative democratic theory, and evolutionary psychology.