Deliberative Mini-Publics, Procedural Fairness, and the Acceptance of Negative Political Decisions: Survey Experimental Evidence from Ireland

For democracies to function, it is vital that the losers in democratic decisions play along and follow the rules to which they are opposed. Deliberative mini-publics have been argued to increase perceptions of democratic legitimacy and the acceptance of negative political decisions. However, whether and under what conditions mini-publics actually have these effects when they are added to existing democratic decision-making processes remains unclear. We ran a survey experiment in Ireland, one of the few countries with extensive experience with government-mandated mini-publics, to examine the polity-wide effects of mini-publics. We find that mini-publics significantly increase perceptions of fair decision-making and the acceptance of negative political decisions, even if mini-publics are followed by a referendum. However, these effects are limited to a scenario whereby the non-binding recommendations of mini-publics subsequently become law. If parliament or citizens in a referendum subsequently decide to ignore the mini-public’s recommendation, the addition of a mini-public to democratic decision-making has a smaller effect on fairness perceptions and no effect at all on the acceptance of negative political decisions. Overall, our results suggest that the potential of mini-publics to increase decision acceptance may be more limited than previously thought.