Let the people rule? How deliberative and direct democracy polarize and depolarize the electorate

In light of citizens’ disengagement with politics, scholars and practitioners have focused on instruments of deliberative and direct democracy – such as citizens’ assemblies and referendums – that can complement democratic representation. Although evidence indicates that these instruments can improve political engagement, referendums can also polarize the electorate, increasing animosity between opinion-based groups. To what extent do deliberative and direct forms of democracy polarize the electorate, and what is their combined effect? We address these questions through a novel pre-post referendum panel focusing on a series of referendums that took place in Italy in 2025. We embedded an experiment, which manipulated the information that voters received, including information about mini-publics that we organized. Preliminary findings indicate that animosity between opinion-based groups increases over time: after the referendums, Yes and No voters dislike each other even more than during the referendum campaign. However, when voters receive two-sided information about the pros and cons of referendum proposals, affective polarization decreases, especially if this information comes from citizens deliberating in a mini public. These findings contribute to our understanding of how issue-based affective polarization arises and indicate how deliberative practices can be combined to direct democratic instruments to reduce animosity within the electorate.