This paper will present empirical evidence from the analysis of deliberative mini-publics. Evidence from two case studies suggests that the main effect of deliberation is to correct a pre-existing distortion of public will. In contrast to pre-deliberative non-attitudes, these distortions are a product of either active manipulation of expressed preferences by the employment of political strategies such as symbolic politics or a product of a generally corrupted public sphere. Experiments in deliberative mini-publics have acted as a corrective lens to these distortions by reconnecting the expressed preferences of participants to their underlying 'will' ?? operationalized under the rubric of subjectivity. Before deliberation, preferences reflect only a small part of the subjective landscape that is activated by the predominant political discourses. Following deliberation preferences reflect a much wider spectrum of beliefs and desires held by individuals. Greater intersubjectivity can also be demonstrated by the use of measures of interpersonal consistency between subjectivity and preferences. That mini-public deliberation does not fundamentally change individual subjectivity — merely reconnecting it the expression of will — Deliberation and the Public Sphere Simon Niemeyer suggests that it may be at least possible to achieve the same results more broadly in the public sphere. The paper concludes by tentatively suggesting ways in which the benefits of deliberation might be institutionalized in light of these findings