Democratic innovations have often been presented as a response to the crisis of political representation, marked by declining trust, citizen exclusion, and weakened deliberation. Deliberative theorists have promoted mini-publics as a way to renew democratic legitimacy by creating spaces for informed, inclusive discussion. Yet despite their growing use across contexts, these institutions have struggled to counter the rise of populism, which has proven far more effective at mobilising broad public support and reshaping political agendas.

In this AHCD Research Seminar, Yanina Welp, Research Fellow at AHCD, examines why mini-publics frequently fail to generate political legitimacy. She argues that deliberative innovations tend to overlook two central dimensions of politics that populist actors successfully activate: power and emotion. While mini-publics prioritise reasoned discussion and procedural inclusion, they often remain technocratic in practice, produce limited political impact, and struggle to inspire wider engagement. Drawing on theoretical debates and empirical cases, the paper examines why mini-publics falter in contests over legitimacy, power, and public engagement—and explores what democratic innovations might consider to better compete with populism. This is not a normative claim in favour of populism but a challenge to prevailing assumptions about institutional fixes and underscore the need for participatory mechanisms that engage not just with reason, but with the political realities of power and emotion.

Discussant: Nenad Stojanovic, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations & Institute for Citizenship Studies, University of Geneva

Moderator: Laura Bullon Cassis, Postdoctoral Researcher, Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy