MPs face a dilemma when it comes to deliberative mini-publics (DMPs): in a context of distrust they may see it as an opportunity to re-legitimize themselves and solve complex policy issues. But it could also challenge the quasi-monopoly they used to have on political decisions and undermine the role of the Parliament and the primacy of elections. The article is founded on 91 face-to-face interviews with French-speaking Belgian MPs sitting in federal or regional parliaments. First, we describe the profile of supporters of DMPs. We then identify three ideal-typical discourses: the power-sharing discourse, the consultative discourse, and the elitist discourse. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, it analyzes the argumentative frames used by MPs to assess deliberative mini-publics using a large number of interviews.Second, it demonstrates that their discourses depend on their evaluation of ordinary citizens' competence to participate and on their resulting vision of representation. Political actors mainly perceive DMPs as power-sharing instruments that would alter their elected position and the legitimacy of the election.

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S'appuyant sur 91 entretiens conduits avec des député•es de Belgique francophone, nous examinons dans cet article les discours sur la démocratie participative et les mini-publics délibératifs en analysant les arguments qu'ils mobilisent pour justifier leurs positions. Nous montrons d'abord que leurs discours sur le sujet dépendent fondamentalement de leur évaluation de la compétence des citoyen•nes ordinaires, mais aussi de considérations sur la légitimité de l'élection. Nous identifions ensuite trois discours types : le discours décisionnel, le discours consultatif et le discours élitiste. Finalement, nous montrons que les positions sur la démocratie participative et les assemblées citoyennes dépendent à la fois de l'idéologie des députés et de leur position plus ou moins marginale dans l'arène politique. mots clés démocratie participative, mini-publics, députés, démocratie représentative.

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The use of referendums has become increasingly popular among both voters and parties. Yet, despite the diffusion of direct democracy in Europe during the last decades, referendums remain not a very common policy instrument in Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg). We establish that this trend could be attributed to a large consensus among mainstream (especially right) parties and voters against the use of direct democracy. Moreover, we confirmed the well-established line of demarcation with radical ideologies, which convey overall more support on the use of referendums than their mainstream counterparts. Additionally, and probably reflecting this new line of cleavage, we show that support for referendums among the voters relate to left-wing economic position, but also with culturally right-wing view. Overall, this article questions the relevance of the traditional leftright divide to explain support for direct democracy, as well as the capacity for (some) parties to align with their voters in terms of democratic demands.