Why citizens’ assemblies can’t tackle populism

While deliberative mini-publics show potential for procedural innovations and compromise, they are no means to strengthen trust in institutions and stop populism, argues political scientist Yanina Welp.

In Switzerland around 20 citizens’ assemblies have taken place at local, cantonal, and national levels. Yet a recent decision by the Parliament of Geneva to cancel a planned 2026 citizens’ assemblyExternal link –arguing that the project lacked a clear mandate and occupied a “vague institutional space”– raises a broader question. At a moment marked by distrust in institutions, declining party identification, and democratic anxiety, was this a missed opportunity or a realistic assessment of what these processes can actually achieve?

Deliberative mini-publics – citizens’ assemblies, citizen juries, deliberative panels, and similar forums – have become one of the most celebrated democratic innovations of recent decades. Their core idea is simple: randomly selected citizens meet, receive information, deliberate under facilitated conditions, and formulate recommendations intended to inform public decisions.

The OECD External linkhas identified more than 700 deliberative processes worldwide, although the real number is almost certainly higher. Europe has become a laboratory for these experimentsExternal link, from the French Citizens’ Convention on Climate to the Conference on the Future of Europe, alongside hundreds of local assemblies in Germany and numerous experiences in Belgium, Ireland, and Switzerland. Outside Europe, deliberative mechanisms are expanding as well. Latin America is experiencing a recent wave of experimentation, particularly in Colombia and BrazilExternal link.

>>Also read our article about a citizens’ assembly in Geneva that was cancelled at short notice:

Their appeal is easy to understand. Across many democracies, elections continue to function but increasingly fail to generate trust, legitimacy, or a sense of political responsiveness. Political parties are weaker, electoral volatility has increased, and many citizens feel that political institutions no longer represent them effectively. In this context, mini-publics appear to offer an attractive alternative: less polarisation and more listening; less competition and more reasoning; less professional politics and more ordinary citizens. The promise is appealing. Yet politics, like other domains, offers no magic solutions. Institutional innovation can contribute to democratisation and democratic renewal—but only under certain conditions. Are mini-publics able to promote it?

Mini-publics are spreading rapidly

In recent years mini-publics have also evolved institutionally. They are no longer confined to isolated consultations. In New York City, for example, mini-public logic has been incorporated into participatory budgeting processes: randomly selected residents deliberate with city agencies to transform proposals into feasible projects before broader public voting takes place.

This expansion has encouraged increasingly ambitious claims. Authors associated with deliberative and open democracy traditions argue that randomly selected assemblies could reduce elite capture, diversify representation, and create more inclusive decision-making systems.

Behind this optimism lies a specific diagnosis of democratic erosion. According to this perspective, democracy suffers mainly from a procedural problem: citizens have too few opportunities to participate meaningfully between elections. Elections aggregate preferences but do not allow citizens to deliberate collectively. Parties create incentives for competition and simplification rather than reflection. If this diagnosis is correct, institutional redesign becomes the solution: create better spaces for participation and democratic legitimacy will improve. Mini-publics seem to be an approach to do so.  

And they do solve some problems. Research consistently shows positive effects among participants. Citizens involved in deliberative processes tend to become more informed, more willing to engage with opposing views, and often report greater trust in democratic procedures. Mini-publics can reduce polarisation inside the deliberative space itself. They generate policy proposals that are often sophisticated and more balanced than observers expect. However, there are also serious limitations.

Even if mini-publics improve deliberation, do they generate political power?

Mini-publics are built to improve deliberation, not to create collective political agency. They help citizens refine preferences, exchange arguments, and formulate recommendations. But they do not generate durable political actors capable of aggregating demands, sustaining mobilisation, competing electorally, governing institutions, or implementing decisions.

This distinction matters because democratic politics is not only about producing good ideas. It is also about creating actors capable of acting collectively. Political agency means more than participation. It refers to the capacity of citizens to transform dispersed concerns into shared political projects and to pursue those projects through organisations able to influence outcomes.

Historically, this role has been performed imperfectly – but fundamentally – by political parties. Parties aggregate interests, organise coalitions, formulate programmes, recruit leadership, and compete for power. Social movements pressure institutions and create public agendas. Elections create authorization and accountability. These mechanisms do not merely collect opinions; they organise political action.

Mini-publics do not. As a result, their influence depends heavily on external actors. Their recommendations are rarely binding. Governments may adopt them, ignore them, or selectively incorporate them. Even highly visible assemblies often struggle to produce structural change. The Conference on the Future of Europe created extensive citizen engagement but had limited transformative consequences for European governance. Similar patterns appear across many national and local experiences: strong deliberation, uncertain implementation.

This points to a broader issue. Many of the problems discussed in deliberative literature—legitimacy, influence, scalability –are often treated as technical challenges. How do we recruit better? How do we improve facilitation? How do we connect recommendations to institutions? These are important questions. But they may obscure a more fundamental limitation. Mini-publics represent citizens descriptively without necessarily constituting them politically.

>>Also read what potential political scientist Andri Heimann sees in deliberative mini-publics:

What populism reveals

During the same decades in which mini-publics were tested, populist movements expanded. This contrast is revealing. Populism and mini-publics emerge from the same crisis of representation but operate through opposite political logics. Mini-publics seek legitimacy through procedures: inclusion, information, deliberation. Populism seeks legitimacy through mobilisation: constructing “the people” as a political subject and promising action against perceived elites.

Populist leaders do something mini-publics generally cannot do: they create political identification.  Citizens do not simply express preferences—they become part of a political project. This does not make populism democratically desirable. Populist governments frequently weaken institutions, polarise societies, and undermine pluralism. But their success reveals something important.

Democratic erosion is not simply a problem of insufficient participation or poor-quality deliberation. It is also and mainly a crisis of collective political agency.  Mini-publics improve voice for the few. They do not necessarily improve agency for the many.

This does not mean abandoning deliberative innovations. But expecting them to solve democratic erosion may place impossible expectations on institutional design. Democracy cannot be repaired through procedures alone. Institutional innovations only become transformative when connected to broader political organisations capable of mobilising citizens and exercising power. This returns us to the Swiss question. Perhaps the problem with Geneva’s cancelled assembly was not that it lacked deliberative value. Perhaps the concern about institutional ambiguity points to a deeper challenge: democratic innovations require political anchoring if they are to matter.

Mini-publics are not a cure for democratic erosion. At their best, they enrich democracy. But democratic renewal still depends on something older and harder to build: organisations that connect citizens to power and transform demands into sustained collective action.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl/ds

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swissinfo.

The text is based on a research article External linkin the “Journal of Representative Democracy”.