Preferences for Deliberative Democracy: Who does not want to Participate in Mini-publics?

This paper offers an empirical analysis of non-participants deciding not to deliberate in two mini-publics in Belgium, the so-called G1000 and the G100. These two deliberative experiences were built on the assumption that people want to be involved in political deliberation about public issues. Yet, the following question remains: Why does the very large majority of the population refuse to participate in such mini-public? Indeed, less than three percent of randomly selected citizens have accepted to come. Analyzing forty in-depth interviews with participants and above all non-participants, this paper shows that motives of acceptance and non-acceptance are always related to the evaluation of the political context and political actors. Our findings challenge current results on inequalities of participation and politicization, and show that the acceptance or not to participate and deliberate depends on the way people see mini-publics as an alternative to the representative model of democracy.