Perception of the legitimacy of citizens' assemblies in deeply divided places

This paper seeks to measure how much public and elite support is there for the use of a citizens’ assembly to tackle major, deadlock-inducing disagreements in deeply divided places with consociational political institutions. It focuses on Northern Ireland and uses evidence from a cross-sectional attitude survey, a survey-based experiment and elite interviews. It finds that the general public support decision-making by a citizens’ assembly, even when the decision reached is one they personally disagree with. However, support is lower among those with strong ideological views. It also finds that elected politicians oppose delegating decision-making power to an ‘undemocratic’ citizens’ assembly, but are more supportive of recommendation-making power.