What’s In a name? The Conceptual Fuzziness of Institutionalization and Embeddedness of Deliberative Mini-Publics

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Despite growing interest in deliberative mini-publics, the literature on their institutionalization and embeddedness suffers from conceptual ambiguity. Existing research often conflates these terms and lacks clear definitions and frameworks for their identification. This study addresses these limitations through a systematic review of 75 scholarly works. We synthesized existing conceptualization, disentangle "institutionalization" and "embeddedness," and propose a novel conceptual framework to guide the identification of institutionalized and embedded deliberative mini-publics. Finally, we outline an agenda for future research.