Interpretative Interactions: An Argument for Descriptive Representation in Deliberative Mini-publics

Abstract

Mini-publics are institutions that invite a small group of citizens to deliberate on a specific political issue. Deliberation scholars find them attractive because they use random sampling techniques to generate representativeness. However, analysts have different interpretations of what exactly mini-publics should represent, and why. In this paper I distinguish between three conceptualizations of descriptive representation in the mini-publics literature. I argue that these conceptualizations do not fully support the interpretative and exploratory aspects of forming considered opinions in the course of deliberations. Instead, they tend to primarily address concerns about the democratic legitimacy of a political institution involving unelected participants. However, I show that mini-publics can be considered legitimate if the notion of legitimacy is detached from elections. I then propose an argument for descriptive representation that better serves the mini-publics' aim of achieving high-quality deliberation.