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

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.