The Diverse Role of Democratic Innovations through the Eyes of Citizens

The last decades have witnessed a wide spread of democratic innovations. Chief among them are mini-publics that have been increasingly implemented in Western democracies. These procedures gather randomly selected citizens to discuss salient political issues with the aim of generating some kind of uptake in the broader political system. The nature of this (potential) uptake has been discussed by democratic theorists. Some advocate the use of mini-publics for shaping public policies or for informing the broad public deliberation while others criticize this option from a democratic point of view. But beyond these theoretical debates, an important question remains. How do ‘ordinary’ citizens conceive the current and the ideal mini publics’ role in the political system? This paper tackles this question through a qualitative approach. Drawing on 88 in-depth interviews with citizens recruited to participate in Belgian mini-publics, it analyses the diverse role of such democratic innovations through the eyes of citizens: a manipulation by political elites, an additional mode of participation to inform representatives, an alternative to the vote and a place to socialize. It then shows that these conceptions are related to different citizens’ attitudes towards the political system.