Making Experiments Feel Safe: How Public Sector Innovation Is Made Democratically Acceptable

Experimental governance has emerged as a central tenet of public sector innovation, promising learning, adaptability, and improved policy outcomes. Yet experimentation also raises persistent legitimacy concerns: unequal treatment, rule-bending, technocratic closure, and uncertainty about accountability. While existing research has largely assessed experimental governance through performance or institutional design, less attention has been paid to how experimentation is made democratically acceptable in practice. Experimental governance has become a common way to innovate in the public sector. Governments use experiments to test new policies, learn quickly, and respond to complex problems. At the same time, experimentation raises concerns about fairness, accountability, and democratic legitimacy. These concerns are often discussed in terms of outcomes or formal procedures. Less attention is paid to how experimentation is explained and justified in practice. This paper studies experimental governance as a problem of democratic acceptability. It asks how public sector experiments are made to feel legitimate and safe. The paper argues that legitimacy depends not only on results, but also on how experiments are framed and narrated. Experiments are more likely to be accepted when they appear close to existing practices and values. These can be described as adjacent forms of change rather than radical breaks. The analysis is based on qualitative material from public sector reforms in Estonia. The material includes policy documents and interpretations of experimental initiatives. Estonia offers an interesting case because innovation and technology are widely trusted, while democratic justification is often implicit rather than explicit. The findings show that experimentation is often presented as limited, reversible, and supportive of existing institutions. Technology is framed as a tool that serves society, not as a goal in itself. The paper makes three contributions. First, it shows that experimental governance relies on narrative work, not only on design or performance. Second, it explains why incremental experiments are easier to legitimate than more disruptive reforms. Third, it highlights the importance of procedural clarity and justification in sustaining trust. These elements are often overlooked but are central to democratic acceptance. The paper concludes that experimental governance should be studied not only as a method of innovation, but also as a democratic practice. Understanding how experiments are made acceptable helps explain why some reforms gain trust while others face resistance.