%0 Journal Article
%T Can Deliberative Minipublics Influence Public Opinion? Theory and Experimental Evidence
%A Ines Levin
%A Sean Ingham
%J Political Research Quarterly
%@ 1938-274X
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1065912918755508
%X Deliberative minipublics are small groups of citizens who deliberate together about a policy issue and convey their conclusions to decision makers. Theorists have argued that deliberative minipublics can give observers evidence about counterfactual, ¡°enlightened¡± public opinion¡ªwhat the people would think about an issue if they had the opportunity to deliberate with their fellow citizens. If the conclusions of a deliberative minipublic are received in this spirit and members of the public revise their opinions upon learning them, then deliberative minipublics could be a means of bringing actual public opinion into closer conformity with counterfactual, enlightened public opinion. We formalize a model of this theory and report the results of a survey experiment designed to test its predictions. The experiment produced evidence that learning the conclusions of a deliberative minipublic influenced respondents¡¯ policy opinions, bringing them into closer conformity with the opinions of the participants in the deliberative minipublic
%K deliberative minipublic
%K deliberative democracy
%K deliberative poll
%K partisan cues
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1065912918755508