Deliberative democracy initiatives, particularly deliberative mini-publics, have seen more promotion, documentation, and study in the Global North, specifically Europe and North America, than in the Global South.

This disparity is notable despite the Global South’s rich history of democratic experimentation, including other notions of representation by sortition[1]. Mini-publics, or ‘mini-populus’[2], such as Citizen Juries, Planning Cells, and Citizens’ Assemblies, were pioneered in the 1960s in the Global North, leading to a proliferation of such initiatives in these regions (Escobar, 2017). However, the Global South has been slower to adopt and document these processes, leading to an imbalance in global deliberative practices.