Why Political Parties Support Deliberative Democracy in Europe
2025-07-23
The contemporary surge in public demand and use of deliberative democracy coincides with an increasing number of parties using deliberation. Despite this growing appetite, we still do not know why political parties support deliberative democracy. This research note addresses this gap in the literature and aims to explain what drives parties’ support for deliberation. We analyze the manifestos belonging to 225 European parties that gained at least 1% of the votes in the national elections between 2019 and 2024. The results confirm the importance of left-wing ideology but bring novel insights according to which the presence in government, party newness and manifesto length increase support for deliberative democracy. Surprisingly, electoral support and populism have no effects.