How does diversity among witnesses in deliberative mini-publics affect citizen perceptions of legitimacy?”

Deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) have been gaining prominence in recent years as a potential way of addressing the democratic deficit of our current institutions of representative democracy and rising political disaffection among citizens. They bring citizens together to deliberate and reach conclusions and policy recommendations. Since participants are expected to represent the wider public, the organisers of DMPs as well as scholars studying them place strong emphasis on diversity and inclusivity among the participants. However, the witnesses or ‘experts’ who are invited to give evidence also play a crucial part in DMPs. While attention is paid to ensuring a diversity of positions among them, diversity in their socio-demographic backgrounds and identities as well as accessibility of the events have been largely left off the agenda. Building on evidence that citizens prefer political processes that provide equal access and influence, this project conducts survey experiments to examine whether citizens perceive DMPs that have procedures in place to ensure diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility among witnesses, as well as DMPs where the participating witnesses are more representative, as more democratically legitimate.