Oct 18, 2021
Towns, cities and regions around France are turning to assemblies of unelected citizens to guide them on everything from climate to coronavi
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Towns, cities and regions around France are turning to assemblies of unelected citizens to guide them on everything from climate to coronavi
Sir David Attenborough thanked the 110 people gathered in Birmingham for giving up their time
Invitations to the assembly were sent out to 30,000 households chosen at random, and of the over 1,500 people who responded asking to be considered, 110 were selected by a computer to be representative of society. There’s a mix of ages, genders, ethnic backgrounds and education levels, but also a range of views about the climate crisis. Participants could hold up a yellow card if a speaker was going too fast, or a red card if they needed something explained or clarified. “It’s about distilling down the enormous complexity of climate change into small pieces of information that are accessible, balanced and meaningful for people, so it is quite a tall order,” said Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh, the director of the UK Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, and one of the assembly’s expert leads.
Citizen Assembly
What is the future of citizen participation? Some say that citizen assembly is the answer.
Assemblies have received increasing attention in recent years as they proved to be helpful when dealing with the most troublesome policies while also preserving our democratic ideals. Members of citizen assemblies are chosen randomly and they are not necessarily experts in a given field, but what matters is that this selection is representative of the wider populations in terms of age, gender, education level, etc.
The benefits of citizen assemblies come as follows: - citizen deliberation helps citizens to understand the complexity of policy dilemmas; - they help local governments to tap into the collective intelligence; - people can take unpopular decisions if needed; - they restore the trust in democratic institutions.
If you want to learn more, CitizenLab has prepared an article about opportunities that citizen assembly might provide the local community with.
Moreover, if you are interested in launching a citizen assembly, CitizenLab platform offers an online workshop feature that proves well with deliberations.
President backs democratic experiment handing power to 150 people chosen at random
“Over several months, across seven weekends, the 150 citizen assembly members have been briefed by experts and have deliberated on issues including fast fashion, plastics, transport and housing. “This is not a consultation asking for people’s views, we’re asking them to produce concrete, structural measures, that’s what’s original,” said Julien Blanchet, who is overseeing the process.”