Ballangé, A. The Trust-Building Use of Minipublics in Times of Democratic Crisis: Squaring the Circle. Representation, 1–20, 2025 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2025.2570274

Abstract

As liberal democracies confront deepening distrust and democratic erosion, deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) are often promoted as instruments for rebuilding trust in political institutions. This article questions that premise. It argues that DMPs depend on background structures of second-order trust-citizens' confidence in the broader system that authorises and responds to participatory forums. When these structures are eroded, DMPs cannot meaningfully deliver trust-building outcomes, no matter how inclusive or well-designed they are. Drawing on the case of the European Citizens' Panels during the Conference on the Future of Europe (2021-2022), the article shows that while participants valued deliberation, they remained sceptical of institutional responsiveness and sincerity. Their mistrust reflected not procedural deficiencies within the panels, but the perceived democratic deficit of the EU itself. This analysis exposes a critical blind spot in the deliberative democracy literature: the assumption that trust is both desirable and achievable under crisis conditions. Instead, the article proposes an alternative democratic function for DMPs — as institutions for organising and expressing democratic distrust. Reimagined as oversight bodies rather than trust-generating devices, DMPs could enhance accountability, visibility, and contestation in contexts where rebuilding consensus is less urgent than safeguarding democracy from further decline.

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