Blueprints for Democratic Wellbeing

Introduction: Purpose and Context

Democratic wellbeing means people having voice and choice over the decisions that affect their lives. Strengthening parliamentary democracy is essential for improving democratic wellbeing in the UK. Building a stronger working relationship between parliamentarians and citizens can increase institutional capacity to address the challenges of our time.

This paper supports current efforts to strengthen public engagement and citizen deliberation in the four UK parliaments. It presents blueprints for institutionalising citizen deliberation. We call them ‘blueprints’ because they lay foundations to build institutions for the future, but they are not intended as rigid designs. The blueprints adapt well-known forms of citizen deliberation for diverse parliamentary purposes and contexts.

The paper has three aims:

• It makes the case for embedding citizen deliberation permanently in UK legislatures to improve policies, decisions and outcomes.
• It introduces four blueprints, considering options and trade-offs for the institutionalisation ¹ of citizen deliberation.
• It outlines practical considerations to embed mini-publics across parliament, as part of broader efforts to improve democratic wellbeing in the UK.

What are mini-publics? Are they a good fit for parliaments?

Mini-publics are forums that involve a cross-section of the public in evidence-informed deliberation to inform decision-making. Participants are selected through civic lottery (aka ‘sortition’) to reflect the diversity of the population in demographics and viewpoints and supported with resources to reduce barriers to participation (e.g. compensation and expenses).²

These features make mini-publics very different from public forums where self-selection gives an advantage to those most likely to volunteer or who can afford to do so. In contrast, mini-publics typically include people who do not usually have the opportunity to participate directly in shaping the decisions that affect their lives. In this way, mini-publics contribute to address the growing ‘participation gap’ that separates the ‘politically rich’ and the ‘politically poor’ in our societies.³

We focus on mini-publics because they provide a robust approach to embedding citizen deliberation in legislatures. With a track record of five decades, research on mini-publics shows that they can:⁴

• attract a diverse cross-section of the population,
• address all kinds of complex issues,
• examine wide-ranging evidence,
• find common ground and overcome political deadlock,
• engage productively with differences, conflict and trade-offs,
• and agree conclusions motivated by public interest.

Mini-publics provide additional support to existing decision-making processes and can help to strengthen public mandates to address policy problems. As parliaments and elected representatives face mounting workloads on an ever-growing number of public issues, mini-publics bring additional capacity to legislatures. They can support, complement and deepen the work of parliamentarians by expanding and strengthening the infrastructure for deliberation, problem-solving and decision-making.

Parliamentarians are already adept at collaborating and delegating to get things done, for example, via committees, commissions, inquiries, task groups, advisory bodies and so on. Mini-publics provide a citizen-centred, evidence-informed and public-spirited mechanism for task delegation that can help parliamentarians to share their duties and fulfil their mandates.

Why should UK legislatures lead the way?

Experiences of mini-publics across the UK in the last three decades provide evidence and the foundations to support their institutionalisation.⁵ The UK has, at key moments in history, taken the lead in developing and upgrading democratic institutions. This paper argues that it is time to do so again.

We are living through a period of epochal change, and our core institutions need reinforcement. Parliamentary democracy has endured because it has evolved. As people and societies change, democratic institutions must change with them. The question today is what form that evolution should take.

A key role of our parliamentarians is to listen in order to lead and represent. Yet the listening architecture at their disposal is increasingly unfit for purpose. They have to make sense of a skewed and fragmented picture of public opinion, triangulating between headlines in traditional media, bursts of social media outrage, claims by organised interest groups, and the myriad demands of constituency casework. What they rarely get is the opportunity to engage with considered public views: the reasoning behind headline positions, the trade-offs people are willing to make, and the options that emerge when citizens engage with evidence and deliberate with one another.

This is not only a deficit of participation, but a deficit of decision-support. When institutions lack access to considered public judgement, they are more vulnerable to short-term pressures, reactive policymaking, and costly policy reversals. The question is therefore not simply how to listen more, but how to listen better in ways that support effective governance.

This raises a simple question: do elected representatives have the tools needed to engage a cross-section of the public in supporting parliamentary work? At present, most approaches available – e.g. polls, petitions, consultations, constituency surgeries, door-step conversations – offer only partial insight. What is missing is ongoing deliberative insight: structured, inclusive, experiential and evidence-based engagement that broadens the range of views considered and deepens the quality of policy deliberation.

This is why institutionalisation matters. Mini-publics organised ad-hoc already provide high-quality spaces for public reasoning, but their value and contribution can be improved with the standing, integrity and protection that institutionalisation brings. Embedding them within legislatures, according to clear rules and procedures, reduces the risk of manipulation, tokenism or neglect. It creates stability, allowing citizen deliberation to bed in and become part of how parliaments work.

This is ultimately about supporting parliamentarians with new infrastructure for working with citizens – deepening representation by generating new power for collective action and thereby strengthening decision-making and policy outcomes. It is about institution-building and long-term thinking: ensuring that parliaments are resilient, connected and responsive in a rapidly changing world. In sum, it is about improving democratic wellbeing in the face of the current democratic recession.

Is there really a global democratic recession?

For over two decades, every major global index has told the same story: democracy is backsliding around the world. Research institutes and democracy observatories have documented a sustained period of democratic recession marked by public dissatisfaction, growing authoritarianism, dwindling civic space, rising polarisation, and declining trust in political institutions.⁶ Fewer people now live in democracies than in autocracies, while democracies with robust rights protections and checks and balances are becoming the exception rather than the norm.⁷

Even countries once considered firmly democratic are not immune. In Western democracies, including the UK, public dissatisfaction has deepened and confidence in political institutions and elected representatives has reached historic lows.⁸

The perception that democratic politics is not delivering for people is corroding legitimacy across systems that previously seemed stable. Crucially, the democratic recession is not just about indices and rankings: it shapes everyday life. When trust erodes, effective social cooperation becomes harder:

• Citizens withdraw or turn to cynicism, anti-establishment sentiment or authoritarian populism.
• Institutions struggle to secure legitimacy for difficult policies and decisions.
• Social cohesion weakens and polarisation hardens.
• Public deliberation becomes shallow debate, less focussed on the public interest and on problem-solving.

For many, the loss of faith in democracy’s capacity to deliver contributes to anxiety, alienation, and a sense of powerlessness. Younger generations are especially sceptical.⁹ An increasing number of people doubt that democracy, as it is practiced today, can make a meaningful difference to their lives and communities. These are warning signs of deeper democratic malaise – symptoms of a system failing to update itself for contemporary realities.

Yet the story is not only one of decline. Across the world, democratic innovation is emerging as a practical response to this crisis.¹⁰ Public institutions and civil society organisations are developing new forms of public engagement and citizen deliberation. The aim is not simply to defend parliamentary democracy, but to strengthen it for the times ahead.

How is the UK doing on democratic wellbeing?

The UK remains a stable democracy, but many people think that it doesn’t work for them. Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK 2025 index indicates that 72% of people do not feel they can influence decisions – a figure that has remained unchanged over the three years of the study. This persistent sense of powerlessness feeds into widespread disengagement and low trust in political institutions.

Carnegie UK’s research on democratic wellbeing examines whether people feel they have voice and influence in the decisions that shape their lives. It is a citizen-centred measure that encompasses trust, participation, a sense of efficacy, and perceptions of fairness. By this measure, the UK faces a significant deficit in democratic wellbeing, although perceptions vary across different segments of the population.

People with higher household incomes and those living in less deprived areas express greater trust and a stronger sense of influence. Older adults report higher democratic wellbeing than younger generations. Conversely, disabled people and those living in social housing continue to feel least able to influence and trust institutions.

These inequalities reveal a disconnect between citizens and political institutions, and a growing divide between the ‘politically rich’ and the ‘politically poor’.¹¹

This picture is echoed across other sources. Recent research finds that nearly half of UK citizens believe none of the political parties represent them.¹² Low trust, low perceived efficacy, and growing openness to undemocratic alternatives signal a democracy under strain.

Yet democratic wellbeing is not an abstract ideal or just a matter of perception. It is the fabric of a functioning society. When people feel they have voice, choice, and influence, institutions gain trust and stability, public legitimacy for complex policy change is easier to build, and collective action becomes possible. When democratic wellbeing is low, these enabling conditions are undermined. A deficit in democratic wellbeing is both a symptom and a driver of wider social problems – from polarisation to policy paralysis.

Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK index notes that democratic wellbeing is as vital as economic or social wellbeing. It is intrinsically valuable: in a democracy, people must have a meaningful say in decisions that affect them. It is also instrumentally valuable: effective governance in a complex society depends on public legitimacy and cooperation. Improving democratic wellbeing requires institutional innovation and renewal. The symptoms of malaise point directly to the remedies: we need better, more meaningful ways for people to contribute to public decisions, and institutions that embed public engagement.

Evidence from the UK and globally shows that citizen deliberation via mini-publics can make a difference.¹³ Participants frequently report a stronger sense of political efficacy, better understanding of issues, and increased trust – provided the process is inclusive, deliberative and connected to decision-making.¹⁴ However, where citizens’ contributions are ignored or instrumentalised, trust can deteriorate further. The careful design and institutionalisation of mini-publics therefore matter greatly.

Under the right conditions, these democratic innovations can help repair the disconnect by enabling citizens to generate ideas, deliberate complex trade-offs, and support the work of elected representatives. They can bring the lived experience and practical wisdom of the public not as a substitute for parliamentary democracy, but as a way of strengthening it.

How does public engagement in UK parliaments currently work?

Across the UK, there is significant momentum toward deeper and more meaningful forms of public engagement.¹⁵ Each of the four parliaments has recognised that public input must be broadened, diversified, and better integrated into their everyday work, and they currently employ a range of engagement channels.

Petition systems give citizens a direct route to suggest issues for debate. Written and oral evidence to select committees bring expert voices and stakeholder input into scrutiny. Public consultations (e.g. online calls for submissions, surveys, dialogues) invite broader public opinion on legislation. Educational programmes, outreach events, and school visits raise awareness of parliamentary work. And of course, parliamentarians’ local surgeries and casework keep representatives connected to some of their constituents. Each of these channels has value: they give access, gather information, and promote public understanding of legislatures. However, there is recognition that these tools alone are not enough.

The Scottish Parliament has experimented with participatory initiatives that treat citizens not simply as consultees but as partners in shaping parliamentary work. Wales and Northern Ireland have also moved towards better public engagement, investing in capacity-building and relationship-building with civic actors. Westminster parliamentary committees have expanded the use of advisory panels, digital engagement methods, and targeted public dialogues that seek to bring lived experience into legislative processes. Across these institutions there is a shared recognition that public engagement matters.

Yet this progress has been limited. Much of the engagement currently undertaken is consultative rather than deliberative; episodic rather than systemic; reliant on organised intermediaries rather than the considered judgement of lay citizens.

While committees are increasingly using new methods, these often struggle to include a cross-section of the public or to support the learning and deliberation needed for citizens to address difficult issues and trade-offs. In short, the parliamentary public engagement landscape is active but fragmented, innovative but uneven, and promising but still falling short of its democratic potential.

This is where mini-publics offer a new way of institutionalising inclusive and informed public reasoning. We are not arguing to replace current public engagement, but to add a capacity that is missing: the ability of citizens to engage in high-quality deliberation that complements the work of parliamentarians. Rather than supplanting representative structures, mini-publics can enrich them by identifying public values, assessing contested evidence, discerning priorities, and generating solutions that elected members can carry forward. This can strengthen the connection and feedback loop between people and parliament, and increase the power of representatives to act effectively.

The value of mini-publics lies in complementing electoral representation with deliberative insight. The underlying theory of change is threefold. First, mini-publics can improve the quality of public reasoning available to decision-makers. Second, when visibly integrated into decision-making, they can strengthen public trust in legislatures and enhance their legitimacy. Third, over time, they can reshape the incentives and practices of parliaments by embedding more deliberative and inclusive ways of working. As a result, policies and decisions are more likely to reflect people’s lived realities, command broader support, and be more implementable – thus leading to better outcomes. However, as later noted, these effects depend on institutional capacity, political leadership, connections across governance systems and broader reforms towards democratic renewal.

The UK already has foundations to be a global leader in this field.¹⁶ What is needed is a shift from experimentation to institutionalisation: moving from ad-hoc projects to a coherent architecture of citizen deliberation that is embedded, resourced, and purposefully connected to parliamentary work.

Blueprints for institutionalising parliamentary mini-publics

The four blueprints below illustrate options for how mini-publics could be institutionalised in UK legislatures. They provide a spectrum of possibilities, from lighter-touch arrangements that remain close to existing practice, to more ambitious reforms that would embed citizen deliberation in parliamentary democracy.

While this report focuses on parliaments, the effectiveness of institutionalised mini-publics depends significantly on their relationship with government. In the UK system, the executive plays a central role in agenda-setting and policy implementation. For this reason, institutionalisation should include clear mechanisms for government engagement and response.

To avoid being overly prescriptive, we lay out adaptable options rather than specified blueprints for individual parliaments. This is because democratic innovation needs to be led from the ground, by those who have the institutional knowledge and know-how to develop new practices within established institutions. It needs to be guided by the committed leadership, historical perspective and contextual pragmatism required for institution-building.

We thus offer a short description of the key characteristics of each blueprint, including how they could be positioned within parliament, their potential role, and key advantages and disadvantages. Then we address cross-cutting themes relevant to all blueprints, namely division of parliamentary labour, authority, accountability, and governance.

The four blueprints should be read as illustrative rather than exhaustive. Some adapt practices that already exist in the UK or other parliamentary systems, while others are trailblazing. They do not cover every possible configuration, but they outline options that make visible key trade-offs. They also show that institutionalisation can be gradual. Parliaments might begin with lighter blueprints and evolve towards deeper embedding over time, as experience, confidence and political support grow.

The design of mini-publics can vary greatly across several dimensions.³⁹ The four blueprints do not provide detailed technical design, but a prompt for discussion of the desirability and feasibility of different options. This is part of the groundwork needed before parliamentary reformers and democratic innovators lead on institutional design.

Nevertheless, before describing the blueprints, we briefly outline some design choices that are common to all mini-publics. These choices take on particular significance when mini-publics are embedded in parliament rather than convened as one-off events.

Remit

The most fundamental design choice concerns what the mini-public is asked to do. Its remit might be focussed, such as informing a select committee inquiry or scrutinising a specific policy proposal; or broader, such as setting priorities, exploring long-term challenges, or articulating public reasoning on contested issues. The remit shapes every other aspect of design, including the evidence examined, the expertise required, the time allocated, the facilitation approach and the deliberative methods. A clear remit is especially important in parliamentary settings, where mini-publics must complement rather than duplicate existing work.

Size and membership

As previously explained, mini-publics are selected through civic lottery, but they can be small or large, depending on their purpose.⁴⁰ Smaller forums such as citizens’ juries or panels allow for intensive deliberation and close interaction, while larger citizens’ assemblies increase the diversity of participants and are more reflective of a cross-section of public views, but require more investment to ensure in-depth deliberation.

While civic lottery supports diversity, it does not automatically remove barriers to participation. Ensuring inclusion requires investment in compensation, support, and accessibility, particularly for marginalised and time-poor groups.

A complementary option is to integrate citizens and parliamentarians within the same mini-public, as seen in the Brussels model or in the Irish Constitutional Convention. Such hybrid arrangements can strengthen mutual understanding, increase political buy-in, and create more direct pathways to influence. This option can be combined with the blueprints outlined below. However, they carry risks: parliamentarians may dominate the process, or citizens may self-censor in their presence.

Time and process

Another key dimension is time. Some mini-publics work over a few days or weeks, while others take longer or are embedded on a permanent basis. Shorter processes are easier to integrate into fast-moving parliamentary timetables, while longer or standing arrangements support learning, institutional memory, and continuity. Choices about time and process depend on the remit. A mini-public tasked with scrutiny may emphasise questioning, cross-examination, and engagement with competing claims. One focused on generating proposals may use scenario-building, trade-off exercises, or co-design methods. Process design must also align with parliamentary norms and rhythms, ensuring that citizen deliberation feeds into decision points where it can have meaningful influence.

Outputs and integration

Finally, mini-publics differ in what they produce and how those outputs travel through parliament. Outputs may include advisory reports, ranked recommendations, options papers, policy appraisals, or public statements of values and priorities. Institutionalisation is not only about generating such outputs, but about establishing regulated pathways for how they are received, debated and responded to – whether through committees, the elected chamber, or formal government response. The coherence and strength of these pathways determine the level of parliamentary integration of a mini-public.

Taken together, these dimensions show the importance of intentional design. The blueprints below can accommodate various design choices, while providing a structured way to think about different forms of institutionalisation. Each blueprint offers a different overall architecture, with concomitant advantages and disadvantages.

Conditions and enablers for embedding mini-publics

Having outlined different blueprints for institutionalising mini-publics in parliaments and key trade-offs for each approach, we now look towards key conditions for advancing this agenda. Interrelated changes will be needed in parliamentary infrastructure and culture, which will require leadership.

Infrastructure

Investment in and changes to existing parliamentary infrastructure will be crucial, but this will often involve tweaking or reorienting existing resources.

• Rules and procedures. The four blueprints require changes to parliamentary rules and procedures to establish guidelines that set out when mini-publics occur, how they are governed and funded, and how their recommendations are dealt with. This would be best achieved through reforms of a parliament’s standing orders. This would help ensure that the mini-publics are there to support all of parliament, and they are not associated with any political party. This would help gain the confidence of parliamentarians and the public.
• Resources. There are some inevitable costs involved in recruiting participants, designing and running sessions, and communicating the process widely. Consequently, mini-publics will require guaranteed funding and ring-fenced budgets to ensure that they can be run at the high standard that an institution like parliament requires. Fortunately, institutionalisation of mini-publics would make them more cost effective as there are economies of scale and savings to be made by developing in-house expertise and resources on the most expensive aspects (e.g. recruitment, facilitation, design, and communication).⁵⁷ To achieve these economies of scale, and to truly institutionalise mini-publics, parliament’s existing units can be reoriented to contribute to their delivery. Parliament’s public engagement teams can help with recruitment, design and facilitation; the information services with the provision of balanced information; committee clerks with the recruitment of expert witnesses; and the communications unit with publicising the mini-public.⁵⁸
• Training. Additional training will be required to support the development of these units’ roles, and it will take time for parliaments to evolve in this new direction. Staff and parliamentarian inductions and manuals will need to include mini-publics. They should be given the opportunity to witness mini-publics in action so they can see how they differ from other approaches to public engagement.⁵⁹ Skilled staff, dedicated participation teams, and long-term investment in institutional learning will be crucial.
• Digital infrastructure. Digital infrastructure can play a substantial role in extending the capacity, reach and impact of mini-publics. While deliberation requires depth and interaction, digital democratic innovations can support agenda-setting, crowdsourcing, transparency, scrutiny, communication, and wider public engagement, connecting broader participation with in-depth deliberation.
• Value for money and the cost of inaction. Concerns about the cost of mini-publics are legitimate. But these should be considered alongside the costs of ineffective policymaking, which can lead to delays, reversals, legal challenges and implementation failures – often at significant public expense. Mini-publics canhelp anticipate public concerns, identify feasible trade-offs and build support for implementation. Improvements in policy design and legitimacy can generate savings over time. Institutionalisation can also reduce costs by building in-house capacity and reducing reliance on external commissioning. Ultimately, value – rather than cost – is the more appropriate lens. Value reflects the relationship between resources and outcomes: used superficially, mini-publics may appear expensive; used with clear purpose on high-stakes issues, they can support better policymaking and long-term savings.

Culture change

Institutional infrastructure on its own is not enough. Rules, procedures, budgets, and units are crucial, but without culture change they are unlikely to embed citizen deliberation.⁶⁰ Democratic innovations can sometimes sit uneasily within existing institutional cultures and require changes to how things work.⁶¹

In this sense, ‘culture’ refers to the shared assumptions, professional norms, routines, and informal expectations that shape how parliamentary actors understand their roles and judge what is legitimate, feasible, or risky. Culture unfolds in everyday practice: how uncertainty and disagreement are navigated, whose knowledge counts, how new ideas are received, and so on. Culture change involves gradually expanding what is taken for granted within the institution, so that public engagement via mini-publics is understood as part of parliamentary work rather than an experimental add-on. Culture change is therefore cumulative and practical: it develops over time, and requires learning from experience, professional development, and the alignment of democratic innovation with core parliamentary purposes.

Democratic innovations frequently enter institutions as experimental practices, dependent on individual champions and vulnerable to shifts in political or institutional priorities. Over time, they may be professionalised and routinised, but this process requires negotiating tensions between established ways of working and new democratic practices that challenge assumptions about expertise, authority, accountability, risk, and control.

Evidence from parliamentary contexts reinforces this picture. Research by Carnegie UK suggests that those who work in and around parliaments are uncertain about whether existing cultures are able or willing to adopt meaningful citizen deliberation. Concerns include fear of duplication, scepticism about citizens’ capacity, risk aversion, time and resource pressures, and anxieties about legitimacy, politicisation or media backlash. These concerns must be taken seriously because they reflect institutional pressures and professional norms that shape how democratic innovations are received.

At the same time, there are signs that cultural change is already underway across parliaments across the UK. Public engagement has become more visible and valued.⁶² Dedicated engagement teams, clearer standards, and growing recognition of the limits of traditional consultation mark a significant shift. Institutionalising mini-publics should be understood as the next step in this trajectory: a deepening of existing commitments to public engagement that is inclusive, deliberative, and impactful.

Advancing culture change in this context thus means building on what already exists, while mindfully but deliberately challenging inherited assumptions. There is no single approach for achieving this. Culture change requires various mutually reinforcing lines of action

• First, raising awareness and understanding is crucial. There are misconceptions about mini-publics, including the idea that they are like opinion polls or focus groups, or substitutes for elected decision-making. Clear, consistent communication – internally and externally – about what mini-publics are, what they are not, and how they add value can help reduce resistance rooted in misunderstanding.
• Second, parliaments can inform their programmes of democratic innovation by learning from past initiatives. There is already substantial experience of and evidence about mini-publics at UK and devolved levels. This can be a crucial source of insight and inspiration to guide institutional reformers.
• Third, culture change is advanced through alliances and partnerships. Institutionalising mini-publics requires collaboration between elected representatives, parliamentary staff, committees, party groups, civil society organisations, researchers, and practitioners. These alliances help distribute ownership, reduce perceived risk, combine knowledge and skills, and embed citizen deliberation within broader agendas towards democratic wellbeing.
• Fourth, there is a need to support parliamentarians directly as they navigate these changes. Elected members operate under intense pressures and in an unforgiving media environment. Providing spaces for discussion, reflection, and peer learning can help parliamentarians explore how mini-publics support and enhance their representative power, rather than threaten it. Culture change is more likely when elected members lead on democratic innovation and institution-building.
• Fifth, culture change extends beyond parliament itself: public narratives matter. Initiating a wider public conversation about how mini-publics can make a difference, focussed on strengthening democratic wellbeing and improving policy outcomes, can help build broader legitimacy.

Moreover, institutionalisation need not be confined to national legislatures. There is potential to connect parliamentary mini-publics with citizen deliberation at local and regional levels, creating a ‘hub and spokes’ system that links community-level participation with institutional decision-making.

Ultimately, to improve democratic wellbeing, people need opportunities to experience meaningful participation across their lives. This includes schools, community settings, and workplaces. Supporting participatory processes across society can increase public support, reduce barriers to engagement, and create expectations that extend into national institutions.

Leadership

Developing infrastructure and advancing culture change require distributed leadership across political, administrative, and civic actors.⁶³ Leadership in this context is about institution-building: moving beyond isolated mini-publics towards stable arrangements with clear mandates and division of labour, adequate resourcing, and capable of ongoing learning and adaptation.

• Parliamentarians can provide foundations for distributed leadership. They have the authority to legitimise mini-publics as part of parliamentary work. This includes raising awareness, supporting institutional reforms, and taking citizen deliberation seriously in committee work, chamber debates and parliamentary votes. When parliamentarians engage with mini-public outputs in a substantive and respectful way, they signal that citizen deliberation is not symbolic but consequential. This kind of leadership is often incremental. It involves normalising new practices, justifying them when they are questioned, and showing their value for scrutiny, advice, agenda-setting, policy development, and public trust.
• The successful institutionalisation of mini-publics hinges on cross-party support and collaboration. If mini-publics become associated with a single party, government, or agenda, their legitimacy and durability is more easily undermined. This does not mean that unanimity is required, but a degree of cross-party agreement is essential. Cross-party leadership helps to position mini-publics as democratic infrastructures rather than political instruments, and to anchor them in shared commitments to strengthening parliamentary democracy.
• Parliamentary staff also play a critical leadership role in advancing institutionalisation.⁶⁴ They often act as brokers, developers, and stewards of democratic innovation, navigating between political priorities, procedural constraints, and public expectations. Leadership here takes the form of developing expertise, maintaining standards, learning from practice, and building institutional confidence that mini-publics can be productively embedded. It also involves advising parliamentarians about opportunities and limits, and supporting them as they consider how existing ways of working might evolve.
• Facilitators, researchers and civil society organisations working in and around parliaments have a crucial supporting role. They can contribute to building parliamentary capacity for process design and facilitation, while developing shared standards and helping elected members and parliamentary staff gain confidence and skills to work with mini-publics. Beyond individual processes, these actors also sustain learning across institutions, generate evidence about what works, and help connect mini-publics to wider agendas for democratic wellbeing. In doing so, they support the quality, credibility, and long-term embedding of mini-publics within parliamentary practice.

Across these different actors, leadership for institutionalisation entails giving mini-publics the stability needed to do their work and show their value. This includes building arrangements that can evolve and endure, acknowledging limits and uncertainties rather than overselling mini-publics as a panacea, and developing shared narratives about their role in strengthening democracy. Such narrative work is imperative when parliaments are addressing hard, polarising, or long-term issues, and when citizen deliberation can help create space for reasoned disagreement and difficult trade-offs.

Importantly, leadership in this context cannot just rely on a small number of champions. It does take a village to raise a mini-public. When leadership is distributed, mini-publics are less vulnerable to political turnover and more likely to become productively embedded in parliamentary work.

Institutionalising mini-publics is ultimately a political challenge. Ongoing support from elected representatives and institutions will depend on whether mini-publics enhance their capacity to make decisions, build legitimacy, manage political risk and deliver tangible benefits. However, beyond the pragmatic case, leadership in democratic innovation is also about stewardship for the future. It involves caring for democratic institutions over time, balancing innovation with continuity, and boosting the capacity of parliament to deliberate and act in the public interest. Embedding mini-publics is not a silver bullet, but it is a practical way in which today’s leaders can strengthen parliamentary democracy alongside other reforms to improve democratic wellbeing.