Mini-publics, Social Legitimacy and Institutional Collaboration: Some Inherent Trade-offs and Three Alternative Design Strategies

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997221147241
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997221147241

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(3) 428 –456

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00953997221147241

journals.sagepub.com/home/aas

Article

Mini-publics,

Social Legitimacy

and Institutional

Collaboration: Some

Inherent Trade-offs

and Three Alternative

Design Strategies

Stefania Ravazzi1

Abstract

Over the last few decades, an increasing number of governments

have promoted the setting up of so called “mini-publics” to integrate

policymaking processes in an attempt to improve policy decisions. This

phenomenon has highlighted the importance of mini-publics to become

fully integrated in our democratic systems. By presenting the findings of

empirical research conducted on 29 local mini-publics, this paper aims to

explain how mini-public design elements can affect the capacity of mini-

publics to trigger or hinder two key integration mechanisms: the social

legitimation mechanism and the institutional collaboration mechanism.

Keywords

mini-publics, deliberation, participation, collaborative governance

1University of Torino, Italy

Corresponding Author:

Stefania Ravazzi, Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Torino,

Lungo Dora Siena 100, Torino 10153, Italy.

Email: stefania.ravazzi@unito.it

1147241AAS0010.1177/00953997221147241Administration & SocietyRavazzi

research-article2022

Ravazzi 429

Introduction

Over the last few decades, an increasing number of governments have pro-

moted the setting up of so called “mini-publics” to integrate policy-making

processes in an attempt to improve policy decisions. Mini-publics are inclu-

sive devices that gather citizens together in discrete bodies to address public

issues. They are designed and managed so that the participants can discuss

and confront a plurality of viewpoints and arguments and can convey rea-

soned recommendations to policy makers (Fung, 2006; Goodin & Dryzek,

2006). Although the expression “mini-public” is sometimes associated with

democratic innovations that select participants randomly (Ryan & Smith,

2014), we prefer not to limit the concept to only some procedural tools or

techniques, since the literature has extensively demonstrated that a plurality

of viewpoints, free expression and argumentation can be realized through

different design elements and methods (Gastil & Levin, 2005; Karpowitz &

Raphael, 2014; Lewanski & Ravazzi, 2017; Ravazzi & Pomatto, 2014).1

Some regional and national governments have introduced laws that

incentivize or impose mini-publics in policy-making processes (Bherer

et al., 2021; Lewanski, 2013; McNulty, 2012; Ravazzi, 2017; Revel et al.,

2007) and some scholars have envisioned far-reaching uses of mini-publics

with decision-making powers (Gastil & Wright, 2019). However, these col-

laborative governance processes are not generally intended to substitute for

representative bodies or traditional policy making, and are instead aimed at

working with, not in place of, official policy makers. Therefore, they are

expected to be coupled with representative democratic systems in ways that

favor the inclusion of the citizens’ needs and requests while respecting the

representative role of elected politicians (Hendriks, 2016). This coupling

process can take place through several mechanisms, among which two have

been highlighted in the literature as being particularly important: social

legitimation, namely the recognition of mini-publics by civil society as

legitimate, useful and effective democratic tools that contribute toward pol-

icy making (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2016; Devillers et al., 2021;

Karpowitz & Raphael, 2014; Parkinson, 2006), and institutional collabora-

tion, namely the development of constructive interactions of politicians and

bureaucrats with mini-public participants (Niessen, 2019; Setälä, 2017). The

democratic coupling of mini-publics does not guarantee that, ultimately,

they really affect policies, but popular support and institutional collaboration

certainly increase the macro-political “uptake” of a mini-p ublic (Vrydagh &

Caluwaerts, 2020). The social legitimation of a mini-public generates wide-

spread expectations of its political impact and, as a consequence, official

policy makers feel more pressed to take citizens’ recommendations into