How Experience Increases the Legitimacy of Citizen Deliberation: Evidence from Honduras

Abstract Deliberative processes are often proposed to strengthen democracy, yet we know relatively little about how citizens evaluate their legitimacy. With a focus on deliberative citizens’ assemblies (or deliberative mini-publics), an increasingly common institutional form, I argue that experience with deliberation increases legitimacy by enhancing perceptions of process fairness and shifting views about citizens’ capacity to deliberate. I test this claim in Honduras with an experiment that pairs real deliberation and survey-experimental measures of legitimacy. Those without deliberative experience view deliberative processes as less legitimate than the status quo. Experience substantially boosts legitimacy, even among those who disagreed with the policy outcome—a strong test of legitimacy. The results advance research on deliberative democracy, democratic innovations, and citizen engagement, and carry implications for efforts to scale deliberative projects.