Legitimacy in the participants’ eyes: a call for participants’ authorship over mini-public design in Brussels

ABSTRACT In response to the limitations of elite-driven democratic innovations, social movements have proposed democratic innovations that are democracy-driven. They claim that democracy-driven governance generates legitimacy by better responding to citizens’ demands. However, whether participating citizens support this claim remains unclear. Under what conditions do participants accept the legitimacy of a mini-public that has been set up by a social movement party? We examine this question by conducting an in-depth case study of the Brussels Citizens’ Assembly organized by the Agora movement party throughout its entire process. Adopting mixed-methods, we find that participants’ perceived legitimacy is shaped by a process-long, dynamic interaction between organizers and participants. Legitimacy is enhanced when organizers grant participants authorship over the BCA’s procedural design and breaks down when they fail to do so.