Towards a More Robust, But Limited and Contingent, Defence of the Political Uses of Deliberative Minipublics

Abstract

The political uses of minipublics confront us with a dilemma: if we accept Cristina Lafont’s critique that minipublics should not have direct political traction but only yield a deliberation-promotion function in the public sphere, we are confronted by the fact that this function is muted in our mediatized, partisan and increasingly polarized political societies. To solve this dilemma, we propose an enhanced shortcut approach with semi-blind deference and an appreciation of citizen heterogeneity. We argue that minipublic recommendations can provide trustworthy signals to (some) citizens in the form of recommendations rather than being major contributors to or shapers of public discourse in the form of reasons. We also propose that deference to minipublic recommendations should hinge on four conditions, namely issue type, opinion strength, the direction of minipublic recommendation (confirming or disconfirming one’s previously held opinions) and the level of consensus reached by the minipublic. Depending on the configuration of these conditions, semi-blind deference asks citizens (especially those who are basically interested in minipublic recommendations) to search for additional and independent sources and engage with arguments produced by the minipublic. Finally, we claim that diverse sectors of the citizenry might have different utility and trust assessments of minipublic recommendations.