The Impact of National Mini-Publics on Climate Policy Decisions: Evidence from over Six-Hundred Proposals in Seven European Countries

Deliberative mini-publics on climate change issues are proliferating across Europe as governments grapple with contentious policy decisions and fail to meet emission reduction targets. Mini-publics, such as citizens’ assemblies, are comprised of randomly selected lay citizens that hear balanced evidence and deliberate an issue before presenting their proposals. Scholars, activists, and politicians contend mini-publics can drive climate policymaking arguing they are more ambitious than governments and provide opportunities to legitimize policy change. Critics, however, question their impact. This pioneering study is the first to systematically examines these assertions, evaluating proposal ambition in comparison to government plans, assessing impact on collective decisions, and exploring factors mediating impact across over six-hundred proposals from national-level mini-publics on climate in seven European countries. Utilizing a pre-post process tracing approach combining data from documents, expert interviews, and expert surveys, we analyze causality for each proposal while considering existing government plans. Preliminary findings indicate that most proposals surpass government plans in ambition, with mini-public proposals causally impacting collective decisions, albeit at varying frequencies and not in all cases. Evidence suggests fortifying impact, emboldening hesitant policymakers, but also political impact, altering policymakers' positions and breaking deadlock. However, impact frequencies are rather low. Potential explanations for (lacking) impact include proposals already aligning with existing government plans or missing perceived usefulness, policymaker interests, initiating actors, and limited inter-ministerial coordination.