Abstract
This essay presents a critical examination of trust in the context of minipublics (DMPs), with the aim of substantiating the notion of contingent trust and making recommendations for its formalization. Filling a gap in the literature on minipublics, it argues that proponents of DMPs have underestimated the conditions for public trust, risking a potential backlash against democratic innovations. It posits that trust in DMPs should not be based solely on their perceived benefits for democracy, but rather on the demonstrated trustworthiness of these mechanisms. And the trustworthiness of DMPs should be considered in terms of public justification. That is, the recommendations of DMPs should only be trusted if (a) their deliberations have been open to the public throughout, and (b) the outcomes of those deliberations can be reasonably justified by the deliberating citizens to their non-deliberating peers. Accordingly, the essay suggests that DMPs can only function as ‚trusted information proxies‘ if it can be ensured that deliberating citizens are not unduly influenced by special interests. It also highlights the potential of DMPs to provide descriptive representation, but warns of issues of attitudinal conformism and self-selection that may undermine their trustworthiness. Finally, the paper argues for improved communication between DMPs and the general public in order to foster horizontal trust between deliberative panelists and non-deliberative citizens. By addressing these key considerations, this essay contributes to a nuanced understanding of trust in DMPs and their role in enhancing democratic legitimacy.
Keywords
Trust, minipublic, democratic innovation, deliberative democracy
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Author
Dr. Aliénor Ballangé (*1990) is postdoctoral researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt and member of the project “ConTrust: Trust in Conflict”. She obtained her PhD in Political Theory from Sciences Po Paris (2018) with a doctoral thesis on the democratic theory of European integration. Her research was granted two thesis prizes (Prix de la Chancellerie des Universités de Paris and Prix de l’Association française des études européennes) and was published by Éditions de la Sorbonne in 2022 under the title La Démocratie communautaire. Généalogie critique de l’Union européenne.
Before joining the project ConTrust, Aliénor Ballangé was research fellow at Sciences Po Bordeaux (2018-2020), postdoctoral fellow at the Justitia Center for Advanced Studies in Frankfurt (2020-2021), and more recently research associate at Normative Orders in Frankfurt (2022).
Her research consists in articulating European studies, democratic theory and critical theory to renew studies on the crisis of representative democracy in the EU. She currently investigates the ambivalent relationship between trust and legitimation in the context of a representative democracy under pressure. Besides, she uses ethnographic research on transnational citizens’ assemblies to evaluate how citizens’ attitudes and perceptions as regard trust and democracy may change with their growing implication into the decision-making process. Her work has been published in international outlets such as Res Publica, Politique européenne, Raisons Politiques, French Politics, and others.