Place that Does(n’t) Matter? Examining the Impact of Regional Context on Public Support for Mini-Publics

While there is an increasing implementation of democratic innovations like deliberative mini publics in national and regional governance, central questions are to know whether the public opinion is on board with such democratic reform, and whether some groups in society might be more supportive than others. As alternative forms of decision-making that may help to fight against the democratic malaise and meet citizens’ demand for more involvement, it has been often expected that mini publics would be particularly appealing to those under-represented in electoral politics. Supporting this view, several studies relying on comparative or case-based studies have stressed that mini-publics are attractive to socio-economic disadvantaged citizens (Talukder and Pilet 2021) or to those politically disaffected (Pilet et al. 2021, Walsh & Elkink 2023). At the same time, a recent strand of regional studies has shown that political disaffection is strongly rooted in the place where citizens live. Citizens who perceive that their region’s interests are not seriously considered or who feel ignored by centrally located political elites report higher levels of regional resentment and political discontent (Munis, 2020; Rodríguez-Pose, 2020), which is especially strong in peripheral and deprived areas (De Lange et al., 2021). This study aim to bridge the gap between these two disconnected strands of research. The contextual dimension is indeed missing in public opinion research on deliberative mini publics that emerged in recent years. However, we argue that the place where citizens live may not only relate to perceptions of political discontent but may also affect the extent that citizens support participatory instruments like mini publics. We aim to explore whether the quality of socio-economic and democratic structures in a region 1) affects citizens’ support for deliberative mini-publics and 2) the individual-level relationship between citizens’ support for mini-publics and their socio-economic profile and level of political satisfaction. To do so, we make use of original survey data collected in fifteen Western European countries, combined with regional-level indicators (e.g., democratic quality index, regional mean household income, regional unemployment levels). Considering contextual variables may constitute a major contribution to public opinion research on deliberative mini publics.