Does party ideology matter in the commissioning of deliberative mini-publics?

Existing research shows that political ideology played an important role in the adoption of Participatory Budgeting in Europe. Is the same true for deliberative mini-publics? Rodrigo Ramis-Moyano, Graham Smith, Ernesto Ganuza and Thamy Pogrebinschi provide the first systematic analysis on this question. They find no clear ideological patterns in the early adoption of mini-publics in Europe, but ideological differentiation when it comes to the designs adopted. These findings show the versatile but ideologically shaped nature of these procedures.

Efforts to implement what have (inelegantly) been termed “mini-publics” – participatory procedures that select members by lottery and use facilitated deliberation for the generation of policy recommendations (e.g. citizens’ assemblies, citizens’ juries) – have gained traction over recent years. This is illustrated by successive reports published by the OECD on the subject, which played a particularly crucial role in raising the profile of the increasing diffusion of the ‘deliberative wave’.

Research on deliberative mini-publics has expanded our knowledge of the potential and limitations of these procedures, but there is scarce evidence on the factors driving their rapid expansion. Our research takes a first step in understanding the role that ideology has played in shaping the ‘deliberative wave’. Adapting the OECD’s “DelibWave” database, we analyse how the ideological affiliation of governing parties influenced the adoption of mini-publics in Europe between 1979 and 2021. Up until now, the influence of party ideology on democratic innovations in Europe has only been examined in detail for the expansion of participatory budgeting (PB), showing that left-wing parties were important in the early adoption of PB; and PBs that enabled higher deliberative quality and greater participant empowerment were usually implemented by left-wing parties. To what extent has the ‘deliberative wave’ followed this ideological pattern?

To answer this question, we first explore whether European parties that belong to left-wing political families (New-Left/Greens, Social-Democrats) have been more involved in the commissioning of deliberative mini-publics than parties from right-wing political families (Liberal, Christian-Democrats, Conservatives). We find that governments along all points of the ideological spectrum have, to a greater or lesser extent, commissioned mini-publics. In aggregate terms, most procedures in Europe have been developed under Social-Democratic governments and they were the most extensive early adopters across the continent, as shown below.

At this level of generality, the influence of party ideology on the ‘deliberative wave’ has similarities to the expansion of participatory budgeting. However, a detailed analysis of the diffusion patterns in the five countries with the most cases (Germany, Denmark, Austria, UK, France) paints a less clear-cut picture. Our results show that the diffusion of mini-publics in Europe takes very different national forms, suggesting that other underlying factors, such as the role of policy entrepreneurs and previous participatory traditions, may be more significant than ideology. Denmark, France and the UK give succor to the expectations of Social-Democratic adoption. But Germany and Austria display a different pattern. In Germany, Christian-Democrats were a significant player alongside Social-Democrats, particularly in the early diffusion of the procedures. In Austria, Christian-Democratic governments have dominated the field. The status of Germany as an outlier has some resonance with the diffusion of PB, where Christian-Democrats were a leading adopter, running against the general trends across the rest of Europe. Overall, compared to the diffusion of participatory budgeting, we find less comprehensive ideological trends in (early) commissioning of mini-publics.

The diffusion of mini-publics in Europe takes very different national forms, suggesting that other underlying factors may be more significant than ideology.

The second aspect of the European ‘deliberative wave’ is whether party ideology has affected the design characteristics of procedures. To investigate this, we examine the purpose, size and length of mini-publics. We find robust evidence of an ideological pattern that echoes findings in the study of participatory budgeting. Social-Democrats are more likely to implement mini-publics with a higher deliberative quality where citizens author their own recommendations. Contrast this with Christian-Democratic governments that tend to commission small, short procedures of a lower deliberative quality that elicit opinions and preferences rather than crafted recommendations.

This straightforward narrative, however, is disrupted by the Conservative pattern of mini-public design, which unexpectedly follows the Social-Democratic trend: small but longer procedures. This is based on a small number of cases, so whether this unexpected finding holds over time will only come to light as further mini-publics are commissioned. The specific role of New-Left/Greens is also underdetermined because of small numbers. We were unable to explore the impact of Conservative and New-Left/Green parties as coalition partners as our study was only focused on the main party of government, due to data limitations.

Ideological affiliation influences how parties conceive of citizen participation and, in turn, the form of procedures they put in place.

Overall, our results reaffirm the idea that ideological affiliation influences how parties conceive of citizen participation and, in turn, the form of procedures they put in place. The pattern of ideological differentiation in the implementation of participatory budgeting is arguably more pronounced, but resonances can still be found in the recent ‘deliberative wave’.

What does this mean for the future of the ‘deliberative wave’? At least two options emerge for advocates of deliberative mini-publics. First, accept that left-of-centre parties are more likely to adopt and implement higher quality processes and explicitly locate deliberative mini-publics as part of a progressive political agenda. Second, consider how to articulate the need for higher quality deliberative mini-publics in a language that appeals more explicitly to right-of-centre political parties. These are competing strategies that could have profound effects on the future trajectory of deliberative politics.

Want to know more? Read the full article in the Journal of Deliberative Democracy.

About the authors

Rodrigo Ramis-Moyano is a PhD candidate at IESA-CSIC and the University of Cordoba (FPU), focusing on the study of citizen participation, particularly on the quality and functioning of democratic innovations. He holds a degree in Sociology (Universidad de Alicante) and a master’s degree in Research Methodology in Social Sciences (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and is an active member of the DEMOCRETS research group. His research interests include political sociology, democratic institutions, and research methodology.

Graham Smith is Professor of Politics at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster. He is a specialist in democratic theory and practice and Chair of the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA). His publications include Democratic innovations: designing institutions for citizen participation (Cambridge, 2009), Can Democracy Safeguard the Future? (Polity, 2021) and We Need to Talk About Climate: How Citizens’ Assemblies Can Help Us Solve the Climate Crisis (University of Westminster Press, 2024)

Ernesto Ganuza is a senior researcher at the IPP-CSIC. He has been visiting scholar in Berlin (Centre Marc Bloch), Paris (CNRS) and Providence (Brown University). His research areas are democratic innovations and political sociology. He works also as a consultant in the organization of participatory or deliberative procedures. He has published several essays and books on these topics, such as The paradox of participation with Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Democracy is possible with Arantxa Mendiharat.

Thamy Pogrebinschi is a senior researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and faculty member of the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research focuses on democratic innovations in Latin America and beyond, examining their impact on policy and democracy at the macro level. She has been the coordinator of the LATINNO project, and her most recent publication is Innovating democracy? The Means and Ends of Citizen Participation in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2023).