The Effects of Participatory Democracy on Political Attitudes: Causal Evidence from Citizens’ Assemblies

Contemporary democracies face growing public disaffection and mistrust. Governments across the world have tried to revert these trends by promoting participatory governance initiatives. We test the ability of citizens’ assemblies to foster democratic attitudes in a natural experiment leveraging the random selection of participants to Lisbon’s citizens’ assembly. A between- and within-subjects design provides robust evidence that participation in two full-day sessions of a citizens’ assembly led to an increase in external political efficacy, political knowledge and raised the salience of the issues discussed in the meeting. However, we find no evidence that these effects spillover to institutional trust or help citizens better recognize the challenges of the policymaking process. The study reveals how participatory governance initiatives can bolster the connection between citizens and the democratic process.