Deliberative Mini-Publics: Involving Citizens in the Democratic Process

The first comprehensive account of the booming phenomenon of deliberative mini-publics, this book offers a systematic review of their variety, discusses their weaknesses, and recommends ways to make them a viable component of democracy. The book takes stock of the diverse practices of deliberative mini-publics and, more concretely, looks at preconditions, processes, and outcomes. It provides a critical assessment of the experience with mini-publics; in particular their lack of policy impact. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, notably James S Fishkin and Mark E Warren, Deliberative Mini-Publics will speak to anyone with an interest in democracy and democratic innovations.

Kimmo Grönlund is professor of political science at Åbo Akademi and director of the Social Science Research Institute (Samforsk). He is Deputy Director of the Centre of Excellence, Democracy – A Citizen Perspective (D:CE). His main research interests are participatory democracy, deliberative democracy, political knowledge, political behaviour, public opinion and elections. His current research projects include: Deliberation Within and Across Enclaves (2011–2015), funded by the Academy of Finland, and Democracy: A Citizen Perspective (2006–2014), funded by Åbo Akademi Foundation.



André Bächtiger is currently Research Professor of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Lucerne's Institute of Political Science. His research focuses on the challenges of mapping and measuring deliberation as well as understanding the preconditions and outcomes of high-quality deliberation in the context of representative institutions and of mini-publics.



Maija Setälä is Professor of Political Science at the University of Turku. She specialises in democratic theory, political trust, direct democracy and democratic innovation and has published a number of articles and books on these topics. Recently, Setälä has applied experimental methods in collaboration with a group of researchers organising field experiments on citizen deliberation.