Global Mini-Publics: Democratization Though Deliberation?

Deliberative democracy emerged as one of the major paradigms in democratic theory toward the end of the twentieth century. Its rise coincided with intense interest in proposals for global or cosmopolitan democracy, though—with some notable exceptions—deliberative democrats have concentrated on revitalizing democracy at the national level. This perhaps reflects the extent to which empirical research on mini-publics became the dominant trend in deliberative democracy by the twenty-first century. Mini-publics—again with one or two notable exceptions—are most commonly introduced within domestic contexts, sponsored by organizations keen to exploit their potential for impact on national or local affairs. It is thus unsurprising that deliberative democrats have had less to say about the global than the national realm, as mini-publics are far less common in the former than the latter domain. There are nonetheless signs that this situation is changing. The claim that mini-publics might be a means of democratizing global governance was initially articulated in the context of speculative theorizing, as in the ambitious proposal for a global citizens’ assembly to redress global democratic deficits put forward by Dryzek et al (2011). This ideal has nonetheless come closer to reality through a recent global citizens’ assembly convened to deliberate the climate crisis, which culminated in a declaration and proposals presented at COP21 (Global Assembly Team 2022). There are plans afoot to set-up further global citizens’ assemblies to address issues and problems that require global attention, such as the governance and regulation of genome editing technologies (Dryzek et al 2020). If deemed successful, it is possible that these microcosmic deliberative forums may become a more regular and perhaps even routine feature of global and international governance. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities of democratizing global governance through the use of global mini-publics. The principal objective is to critically interrogate a plausible intuition about the use of mini-publics in global contexts: since mini-publics are often utilized to offset deliberative democratic deficits, and since these deficits are likely to be more pronounced at the global than the national level, then there is a stronger normative presumption in favour of (a) introducing and (b) empowering mini-publics in global contexts than domestic contexts. Though this view has merit, the central contention of the paper is that this intuition is mistaken. First, there are concerns about the representative credentials of mini-publics that weigh more heavily in global than national contexts. Second, the structural deficiencies of global governance, somewhat paradoxically, increases both the need and the risks of mini-publics in global contexts compared to national contexts. The paper thus calls for a more cautious and critical stance towards their use in global contexts, complementing the similarly nuanced approach that is most appropriate for their use in domestic contexts.