The Perception of the Legitimacy of Citizens’ Assemblies in Deeply Divided Places? Evidence of Public and Elite Opinion from Consociational Northern Ireland

Abstract How much public and elite support is there for the use of a citizens’ assembly – random selection citizens brought together to consider policy issue tackle major, deadlock-inducing disagreements in deeply divided places with consociational political institutions? We focus on Northern Ireland evidence from cross-sectional attitude survey, survey-based experiment interviews. find that general decision-making by assembly, even when decision reached one they personally disagree with. However, lower among those strong ideological views. also elected politicians oppose delegating power an ‘undemocratic’ but are more supportive recommendation-making power. These findings highlight potential post-conflict consociations be amended, consent parties, include assemblies make recommendations not binding policy.