Deliberative Wave and Neo‐Managerial Conception of Mini‐Publics

Abstract This Research Note analyses how the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) has promoted mini‐publics, before focusing on a specific collaboration between the OECD and the Directorate‐General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission in the case of the mini‐public Besaya Delibera . Drawing on the literature on the OECD and on the tensions between New Public Management and deliberative‐participatory formats, it examines the possibility of a neomanagerial conception underpinning the promotion of mini‐publics. In the case of Besaya, I show that citizens are treated more as clients than as agents of public policies, with their participation allowing them to influence only marginally a market‐oriented environmental framing.