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When the Scottish Parliament was established the intention of the founders was to make it a more innovative, participatory, and deliberative legislature than the UK had experienced before. Research suggests that attempts to achieve these aspirations were short-lived. Recently, a Commission on Parliamentary Reform (2017) was established to add fresh impetus to this mission. Its recommendations included the running of inhouse mini-publics to support the committee system. In 2019 the Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Engagement Unit ran their first mini-publics: a Citizens' Jury on land management and the natural environment for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, and a series of Citizens’ Panels on the future of primary care for the Health and Sport Committee. This paper evaluates their design and implementation against key norms of deliberative democracy and the expectations of the reform committee, to establish whether the Scottish Parliament is now adopting a meaningful ‘new politics’. We analyse primary data collected from a mixed method study that included structured participant surveys, semi-structured interviews with parliamentary staff, committee members, and expert witnesses; supplemented with non-participant observations and secondary data sources. We conclude with suggestions to enable mini-publics to be embedded in the committee system more permanently.

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Mini-publics, such as citizens' assemblies and citizens' juries, typically invite a small number of citizens to deliberate on a political issue. To ensure the inclusion of different social groups, scholars usually suggest stratified or quota sampling. However, given that the sampling method is known to selected participants, such measures not only secure the presence of individuals from different social groups; they also emphasize the salience of social group differences. Since the deliberative process involves both highlighting and transcending differences, this paper explores whether the emphasis on social group difference associated with stratified and quota sampling triggers a trade-off between expectations of observing and acknowledging differences, on the one hand, and expectations of humble communication and reflexivity in deliberation, on the other hand. The main finding is that emphasizing group differences raises expectations of observing and acknowledging differences without lowering the prospect of humble communication and reflexivity.

Mini-publics, such as citizens' assemblies and citizens' juries, typically invite a small number of citizens to deliberate on a political issue. To ensure the inclusion of different social groups, scholars usually suggest stratified or quota sampling. However, given that the sampling method is known to selected participants, such measures not only secure the presence of individuals from different social groups; they also emphasize the salience of social group differences. Since the deliberative process involves both highlighting and transcending differences, this paper explores whether the emphasis on social group difference associated with stratified and quota sampling triggers a trade-off between expectations of observing and acknowledging differences, on the one hand, and expectations of humble communication and reflexivity in deliberation, on the other hand. The main finding is that emphasizing group differences raises expectations of observing and acknowledging differences without lowering the prospect of humble communication and reflexivity.