Representativeness of Deliberative Mini-Publics and Perceived Legitimacy: Survey Experiment on the Dutch Climate Assembly

Deliberative mini-publics have been increasingly implemented to address challenges facing representative democracy (Elstub & Escobar, 2019; Paulis et al., 2021). By selecting participants through sortition, deliberative mini-publics are typically designed to be representative and to include voices that are often excluded from political decision-making, thereby potentially enhancing the legitimacy of the democratic process. Previous research shows that deliberative mini-publics are perceived as especially legitimate when the broader public perceives participants to be “people like them” (Pow et al., 2020). Building on this literature, we examine whether and to what extent awareness of the actual descriptive and substantive representativeness of a citizens’ assembly affects its perceived legitimacy. We study this question in the context of the Netherlands’ Citizens’ Assembly on Climate. Participants in this assembly were selected based on gender, education, region, age, and opinion on climate change, resulting in a group that was representative of the Dutch population with respect to these characteristics. Using a survey experiment among the broader public, we vary the information provided about the actual descriptive (gender, education, region, and age) and substantive (opinion on climate change) representativeness of the citizens’ assembly. Because the experiment is embedded in a real-world case, the study offers relatively strong external validity. However, some respondents may already be aware of the assembly’s representativeness. Therefore, we include a control group that receives no additional information. We then assess how this information affects perceptions of the assembly’s overall representativeness, perceived representation by the assembly, and overall perceived legitimacy (fairness). The findings will contribute to ongoing debates on the legitimacy of deliberative mini-publics by clarifying whether actual representativeness matters for public legitimacy perceptions, which forms of representation matter most, and for whom. These insights can have direct implications for the design of participant selection in deliberative mini-publics.