What are citizen's assemblies, and why are they an important democratic innovation? How can ciitizen's assemblies address incentive issues with elected officials in a representative democracy?

Citizen's assemblies bring together a representative group of citizens in a jurisdiction who work together to formulate policy recommendations. Whereas elected officials face perverse incentives due to election cycles, campaign finance, lobbying, and partisan politics, citizen assemblies bring a diverse group of ordinary citizens together and regularly reach high levels of consensus. Citizens assemblies are gaining traction around the world.

DemocracyNext founder and citizen's assembly vanguard Claudia Chwalisz joined us on the podcast to discuss this essential topic.

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Purpose: to have an influence on public decision making.  Modern assemblies have tended to propose rather than directly enact public policy changes due to constrictions in place by most constitutions.  Sometimes recommendations are sent to the electorate as a referendum.

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Essential details:

• Uses elements of a jury to create public policy
• A group of people selected by lottery from the general population to deliberate on important public questions so as to exert an influence.
• Its members form a representative cross-section of the public
• Can be temporary to deliberate on a specific issue or permanent with rotating membership
• Across several in-person meetings over the course of months, members learn deeply about an issue, weigh trade-offs and work to find common ground on a shared set of recommendations.
• Valuable for policy areas where politicians have a conflict of interest, e.g. benefits beyond election cycles, decisions with economic conflict of interest
• Well suited to complex issues with trade-offs and values-driven dilemmas
• Increasing in popularity since the 1980s, gaining momentum since 2010

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What makes them compelling:

• Leads to better policy outcomes
• Allow decision makers to tackle more complex problems that require long term solutions which go beyond election cycles
• Provides greater legitimacy to make hard choices >> help prep policy makes to better understand public priorities
• Build public trust in government and democratic institutions by giving citizens a significant role to play in public decision making
• Help counteract polarization and disinformation
• Strengthen integrity and prevent corruption by ensuring those with money and power cannot have undue influence on a public decision
• Make government more inclusive by opening the door to a much more diverse group of people
• Signal civic respect and empower people

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Membership:

• Size: large enough to capture a representative cross -section of the population of the relevant jurisdiction, typically between 50 and 200 citizens
• Selection: Sortition Stage 1: invites sent to a random sample of the population (2k to 30k).  Recipients volunteer to opt in to the lottery. Sortition Stage 2: second selection of lottery amongst volunteers stratified based on age, gender, location, socio-economics.  Final group is broadly representative of the community concerned
• Members are compensated for their time and costs such as transportation, accommodations, and child care are covered so as to reduce barriers to participation and ensure representation

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Process / Typical Timeline:

• 2-3 months: securing commitment and assembly design
• 1-2 months: sortition
• 2-3 months: Citizen’s assembly, learning and deliberation takes place across multiple weekends over several months
• Response and follow up, immediately, 3 months later, then every 6 mos
• Substantial time in the deliberation process is necessary for legitimacy

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Agenda-setting:

• In many major examples legislative agenda is set before the assemblies were convened (issue-specific, where issue is set by the governing body)
• Permanent assemblies give citizens control over the agenda – part of the ongoing citizen assemblies in Belgium, Paris, and Brussels. Important attribute of an essential component of an ideal democracy

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Deliberation Process and Integrity: 

• Allows members to reflect on their values and weigh new information in dialogue with subject-matter experts and their peers
• Briefing Material should be balanced, diverse, and accurate
• Assemblies can request additional information so as to safeguard against bias

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Decision-making:

• Tends to reach high levels of consensus given heterogeneity of the assemblies (makes them particularly compelling in an age of polarization and partisan politics)
• Usually done via voting process
• Sometimes uses secret ballots

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Guardrails:

• Usually some sort of checks and balances when not just advisory, more necessary for permanent assemblies
• Some concern there isn’t the same accountability as elections

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Notable Examples

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British Colombia:

• In 2004 a Citizens' Assembly was established through legislation and formally mandated to provide a proposal on electoral reform, which was then put to a popular referendum
• For the first time in modern history, the task of creating an electoral system was given to ordinary citizens rather than politicians or experts.
• The body was composed of 160 citizens selected at random from throughout the province, meeting approximately every other weekend for one year
• Their final report and recommendation was submitted to the public and the final decision was put to a referendum.

Ireland:

• From 2012-2014 Ireland ran a constitutional convention comprising a chairperson, 33 legislators nominated by political parties, and 67 citizens selected to be demographically representative
• It discussed six issues specified by the government and then two assembly-selected issues, producing nine reports on issues ranging from the voting age, same sex marriages, and electoral reform.  
• The Irish government accepted six recommendations for Constitutional change
• Referendums were held on two of the issues in May 2015, on reducing the age threshold for candidacy in Presidential elections and on marriage equality. The marriage equality referendum passed by a majority of 62.1%.

Belgium: 

• Established the first modern permanent assembly in Oest?.  The Assembly shares powers in the legislature with elected officials. Since Brussels and Wallonia have also established permanent citizen’s assemblies

France:

• Paris established a permanent citizen’s assembly in 2021.
• In July 2024 On July 10 the Paris City Council took up major legislation re: homelessness written by its 100 person Citizens' Assembly and passed it directly into law. 

United States:

• In 2024 Deschutes County Oregon organized a Civic Assembly on Youth Homelessness
• 25 assembly members
• Group coalesced on a dozen recs each with more than 75% supermajority, ranked from greatest to least agreement