Under What Conditions Do Mini-Publics Exert an Influence on Public Policy? A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Mini-Publics in Belgium

In recent years, mini-publics have been promoted as a potential remedy to democratic deficiencies. While scholars have devoted close attention to its internal effects on participants, we still know little about their influence on public policy. This paper focuses on this issue and addresses the following question: under what conditions do mini-publics exert an influence on public policy? In a first step, I develop a model that accounts for the policy influence of mini-publics. Combining insights from literature on democratic innovations, legislative studies, and public policy, two main clusters of conditions are identified. On the one hand, I examine the mini-publics’ characteristics, namely their size, length, and agenda openness. On the other hand, we consider the broader context in which the mini-public occur and, more exactly, its proximity to elections, governance scheme, and the participatory experience of the public authority. In a second step, I apply this model on empirical cases. I focus on mini-publics taking place in Belgium since 2001. This country has featured numerous different mini-publics, which allows us to conduct a comparison on 30 cases. In addition, its political context provides different levels of authority and a fragmented polity, which ensures a contextual variation. I have compiled a database of new and uncovered Belgian mini-publics. In order to analyze this innovate data, I opt for a Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Thanks to this method, I identify configurations of necessary and sufficient conditions that explain the mini-publics’ influence on public policy. This paper breaks new ground in regard to previous research. First, by merging findings from various literature, it brings new insights into the explanations for the mini-publics’ policy influence. Moreover, the investigation of a larger number of cases allows the identification of patterns across multiple cases, therewith going a step further than the existing small comparative studies.