Changing Attitudes on Local Online-Participation by Councillors, Political Parties and Citizen?

Democratic innovation in the field of local political participation were often primarily implemented at the local level, which can be regarded as a laboratory for democratic innovation. These instruments were broadly accepted by citizen as well as politicians. The paper compares results from broad re¬pre¬sen¬tative national surveys in 2013 with survey in 2019 and 2025 in Germany analyzing the attitudes of citizen as well as local councillors. Citizen as well as elected politicians are generally relatively open to these new participatory instruments. However, deliberative mini-publics (citizen juries and assemblies) based on the random selection of participants were regarded as less attractive than other participatory instruments by councillors in 2013. What are the reasons for this negative evaluation? Have these attitudes changed since in 2019 and in 2025?