Public participation reduces resistance to system-level policies

To address pressing societal challenges like climate change and pandemics,policymakers must implement system-level policies (e.g., mandates, taxes). Yet policymakersmay refrain from implementing them because such policies frequently spark strong publicresistance, making it critical to find ways to reduce that resistance. Here, we test whetherpublic participation through referenda or citizen forums can lower resistance to system-levelpolicies. We combine a case study of US taxes with seven preregistered experiments on UKadults (n = 8,083). Across different policy domains, we find that both types of publicparticipation reduce resistance, even among individuals who did not personally participate.Neither the importance of the restricted behavior nor the policy stance strongly affects theresults. Descriptive social norms and perceived fairness help account for the effect. Thesefindings highlight public participation as an effective tool for decreasing citizens’ resistanceto controversial but important policies.