Project summary

At Carnegie UK, Democratic Wellbeing means that we all have a voice and choice in decisions that affect our lives. However, across the UK there is currently low levels of trust in our democratic systems and institutions. There is increased recognition that democracy and its institutions need to evolve to help rebuild connections and improve transparency between people in communities and those they elect to office. Participatory and deliberative democratic initiatives, such as citizen’s assemblies, can help to address these challenges.

Our work in this space began with undertaking research to improve our understanding of the impact of deliberative democracy and its contribution to improving democratic wellbeing in the UK.

We spoke with participants, commissioners and facilitators of deliberative democratic processes and found that these processes did positively contribute to democratic wellbeing if they are designed and delivered to high standards of inclusion and accountability. If not, then participants in these processes may be left with lower overall levels of trust than they started with if they are told their views matter but are not kept engaged about how they are acted on or taken forward. Without proper accountability, these initiatives risk being tokenistic.

Our research and engagement tells us that it is possible to address issues of public disconnect and a lack of trust in democracy if more engaging, meaningful and recurring opportunities are established and embedded for people to influence the decisions that most affect their lives.

In 2025, we commissioned research to better understand the views of politicians from across the UK’s four parliaments towards deliberative democracy. This work revealed that elected members across the UK display a cautious openness to deliberative democracy. However, there remains both a lack of understanding and a persistent belief amongst those we surveyed, that these processes lack democratic mandates and that they duplicate the roles of elected members.

These findings were used in combination with four stakeholder roundtable events we hosted in Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and London to inform our Blueprints for Democratic Wellbeing paper. This paper was authored by our expert associates Prof Oliver Escobar and Prof Stephen Elstub, with the aim of making the case for embedding citizen deliberation permanently in UK legislatures to help improve Democratic Wellbeing. It introduces four blueprints, considering options and trade-offs for the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy across UK parliaments and assemblies. Concluding that the time for action is now, action is feasible and that these blueprints show paths towards these reforms but local officials, elected members and the public are needed to deliver this change.

Key findings and conclusions

• Almost a third of MPs say they’ve never heard of deliberative democracy.
• 36% of MSPs and 28% of MPs agree that deliberative democracy would help resolve entrenched problems within society, with 30% of MSPs and 33% of MPs disagreeing with this statement.
• Only a minority of elected representatives have confidence that institutions can adopt and act on findings from deliberative processes.

Strengthening parliamentary institutions is essential to improving democratic wellbeing, and better embedding citizen deliberation in our existing legislatures is a practical and achievable way of doing so. As such, Carnegie UK believes that we should:

• Build awareness of deliberative processes among elected representatives: More education about, exposure to, and experience of deliberative processes can reduce concerns from elected representatives about their legitimacy and duplication. Governments and legislatures should look at opportunities for elected representatives to observe and/or engage with these processes as a means of building understanding and trust towards them over time.
• Clarify how deliberative processes can complement and enhance representative decision making: Concerns from elected representatives about mandate, leadership, and accountability of deliberative processes highlight the need for greater clarity about their added value and place in the democratic system. Clearer frameworks and communication from those that support these initiatives should set out more consistently how deliberative processes can support and enhance the work of elected representatives, not undermine it.
• Better institutionalise deliberative processes into existing legislatures: The contribution of all UK parliaments to the democratic wellbeing of the country could be improved by better embedding deliberative democracy into our existing institutions. This would not only help to raise awareness and experience of these processes among elected representatives but would also help parliaments to make better decisions and grapple with complex policy issues while retaining clear distinction of roles alongside traditional representative democracy.