Animals and deliberative institutions: The case of mini-publics

This paper explores the integration of non-human animal interests in deliberative democratic frameworks. Situated at the intersection of deliberative democracy and animal ethics, my research addresses the challenge of increasing the political voice of non-human animals, who are profoundly affected by political decisions yet are systematically excluded from political influence. This exclusion poses significant ethical and democratic questions and requires a re-conceptualization of conventional views on political representation and the role of animals in democratic societies.

Concretely, the paper draws on the concept of mini-publics—deliberative forums composed of randomly selected citizens—to propose a framework for the representation of non-human animals in political decision-making. While mini-publics are traditionally centered on human-centric issues, this paper seeks to extend their application to encompass non-human animals, thus offering a pragmatic method to enhance their representation in the democratic process.

More specifically, the paper proposes a novel concept of animal trustees, termed “engaged trustees,” to represent non-human animal interests within mini-publics. This concept builds on Cochrane’s (2018) model of animal trusteeship but is modified to incorporate elements of “joint politics” as recently developed by Donaldson and Kymlicka (2023). In a nutshell, the engaged trustee is envisioned as actively deliberating with animals to gather their preferences and interests before representing them in mini-publics. This approach strives to move beyond the traditional portrayal of animals as passive subjects within political discourse, instead recognizing them as active participants.

By analyzing the potential role of deliberative mini-publics for representing non-human animal interests, this paper contributes to the “political turn” in animal ethics (Garner & O'Sullivan, 2016). As such, this research not only seeks to enhance the legitimacy of political decisions but also aligns with broader ethical considerations of justice and inclusivity in democratic societies.

Friderike Spang is an SNSF Senior Researcher at the University of Lausanne, where she works on the project Understanding Political Compromises in Democracies (UPCiDe).
Her research is in political theory and political philosophy as well as applied ethics. Her work in political theory and political philosophy centers on compromise, disagreement, and deliberative democracy. In applied ethics, she works on environmental and animal ethics.

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