Improving Governance in an Illiberal Context: How Hungarians Envision a National Climate Citizens’ Assembly ?

This article investigates how Hungarian citizens envision a national Climate Citizens’ Assembly, drawing on two conjoint survey experiments conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults. The study sets out to compare preferences in Budapest and the rest of Hungary across a range of core design dimensions. These include participant selection, decision-making rules, transparency, assembly size, and the binding force of recommendations. In addition to these dimensions, the study incorporates socio-demographic and attitudinal predictors such as ideology, education, and democratic satisfaction. Situated in a political context where deliberative institutions remain limited and climate assemblies are confined to the local level, the study demonstrates how geographical and political divides shape democratic imagination. By identifying which design features different groups perceive as legitimate, appealing, or unacceptable, the article provides new empirical evidence to debates on the feasibility and constraints of climate assemblies in hybrid regimes. The findings demonstrate that democratic innovations do not have a uniform effect across society; rather, they are interpreted through distinct local and national imaginaries. This offers important insights for understanding socioecological governance in unfavourable political environments.