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Deliberative minipublics are popular tools to address the current crisis in democracy. However, it remains ambiguous to what degree these small-scale forums matter for mass democracy. In this study, we ask the question to what extent minipublics have “spillover effects” on lay citizens—that is, long-term effects on participating citizens and effects on non-participating citizens. We answer this question by means of a systematic review of the empirical research on minipublics’ spillover effects published before 2019. We identify 60 eligible studies published between 1999 and 2018 and provide a synthesis of the empirical results. We show that the evidence for most spillover effects remains tentative because the relevant body of empirical evidence is still small. Based on the review, we discuss the implications for democratic theory and outline several trajectories for future research.

Policy-makers are increasingly experimenting with various ways to involve citizens in policy-making. Deliberative forums composed of lay citizens (minipublics) count among the most popular of such innovations. Despite their popularity, it is often unclear in what ways such minipublics could affect policy-making. This article addresses this issue of conceptual ambiguity by drawing on an original systematic review of the literature. It shows that the literature has approached these consequences in three ways: congruence with decisions, consideration in the policy-making process, and structural change. The article discusses the implications for empirical research and points out trajectories for future research on deliberative minipublics.

Terrorism only poses a small risk to people but tends to be a major source of public fear. Through fear, terrorism has far-reaching implications for public governance. In this paper we look at trust in government as a potential mitigating factor of fear of terrorism. We discern between calculative trust, based on analytical assessment of previous and expected future actions, and relational trust, based on emotions and perceived value similarity with government. We find that relational trust decreases fear of terrorism. A similar but less robust negative relationship exists between calculative trust and fear. However, our regression analyses suggest that relational trust, in fact, may mediate the relationship between calculative trust and fear of terrorism. In other words, the more citizens think government is able to prevent terrorist attacks and feel that authorities are doing enough, the more they, in turn, feel that their government shares their values, and the less fearful they are of future terrorist attacks. KEYWORDS Trust in government; fear of terrorism; risk perceptionsCONTACT Jaroslaw Kantorowicz