Coupling mini- and maxi-public: Can randomly selected non-participants contribute to a better linkage between the mini- and the maxi-public?

Devillers, Sophie;Vrydagh, Julien;Reuchamps, Min
(2018) Seventh edition of the conference BELGIUM: THE STATE OF THE FEDERATION — Location: Leuven (20.December.2018)

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Devillers-Reuchamps-Vrydagh-Coupligmini-maxi-public-SoF2018.pdf
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Authors
  • Devillers, SophieUCLouvain
    Author
  • Vrydagh, Julienorcid-logoUCLouvain
    Author
  • Reuchamps, Minorcid-logoUCLouvain
    Author
Abstract
An increasing number of people advocate the use of sortition to govern contemporary democracies and in particular random sampling to compose mini-publics. These processes emphasize the deliberation in which randomly selected lay citizens engage in a structured discussion so as to formulate recommendations for policy-makers. Random sampling offers an equal chance to all citizens to be randomly selected, which brings it close to the ideal of “equal participation of all citizens”. Also, this selection process is an efficient way to reach a substantial diversity through its ability to reach traditionally excluded groups. However, a large number of randomly selected citizens usually refuse to participate, which is why a larger sample has to be drawn to obtain enough positive responses to compose the panel. Then, a second random sampling is operated among the people who accepted to participate, usually along quotas reflecting the distribution of people inside the population. Often, studies miss to take this final stage of selection into account, either focusing on the ones who did not want to participate or the ones who actually participated. This is why our study is focusing on the third set of people involved in mini-publics: the ones who wanted to participate when randomly selected in the first stage but who were not eventually selected during the second stage. More specifically, our study focuses on the “Make your Brussels Mobility” mini-public. On the first stage, 8000 residents of Brussels were randomly selected and received an official invitation letter from the President of the Parliament. Among them, 377 accepted to participate. On the second stage, 41 citizens were randomly selected to compose the panel. Our article builds on a survey sent to the 336 citizens who were finally not selected to participate. This survey investigates the opinions of these non-selected participants regarding the panel and its legitimacy. This question is crucial because we still know very little about how to raise awareness of mini-public among the rest of the population. Our research provides innovative insights on whether selecting a large sample in the first step contributes to attract their interest on the mini-public’s process and outcome.
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Devillers, S., Vrydagh, J., & Reuchamps, M. (2018). Coupling mini- and maxi-public: Can randomly selected non-participants contribute to a better linkage between the mini- and the maxi-public? Seventh edition of the conference BELGIUM: THE STATE OF THE FEDERATION, Leuven. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/243505