Replication material for: “Non-Participation in Democractic Assemblies: Factors, Reasons, Suggestions.”

How should a democratic assembly be designed to attract large and diverse groups of citizens? We addressed this question by conducting a population survey in three communities with institutionalized participatory deliberative democracy in Switzerland. To examine participatory disposition in light of both individual characteristics and design features of the assembly that citizens contemplate joining, the survey comprised a con-joint experiment in which each respondent was asked to indicate his or her likelihood in participating in democratic assemblies with varying design features. The main result is that design features emphasizing the communitarian character of the assembly increases citizens’ willingness to participate, especially among disengaged citizens. Moreover, citizens were found to be less attracted by both very consensual and very adversarial meeting styles. Rather, we found meeting styles combining both controversy and consensus to be most favorable to assembly turnout. The implication is that practitioners of participatory or deliberative democracy must engage in community-building to foster turnout and inclusiveness in democratic assemblies.