With people just like you and me.
A citizens' assembly brings together a broadly representative bunch of people, selected by democratic lottery, to decide how we should live together. It's really that simple.
For more information, keep reading, or jump straight to:
Why Citizens' Assemblies?
Because everyday people should decide how we live together.
Citizens' assemblies are an innovative and powerful way to make political decisions. They break the hold of career politicians on decisions, and bypass the powerful vested interests that often exert undue influence on policy outcomes.
They are a way to put representative groups of people, brought together in informed and deliberative environments at the centre of decision making.
What is "sortition"?
Simple answer: it's just another word for lottery. To be in a citizens' assembly you must be selected by democratic lottery to take part. You cannot buy your way in, nor can you simply turn up. This makes it fair for everyone. Everyone should, ideally, have an equal chance of being selected. And who knows, for the next citizens' assembly maybe it could be you?
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What is so good about sortition in citizens' assemblies?
Here are 10 good reasons to use citizens' assemblies. In short, they:
- Produce better, fairer political decisions
- Increase the legitimacy of, and trust in, political decisions
- Ensure marginalised and diverse voices are included in political decisions
- Helps strengthen the "civic muscle" of assembly participants
How to run a citizens' assembly
It’s not rocket science!
You just follow these five simple steps...
1. Select a broadly representative bunch of people by lottery.
Okay, when we said "simple" what we meant was that the steps are simple to understand, because recruiting a broadly representative group of people by lottery is not so easy – in fact it's what we specialise in doing. Here's how it's done.
Step 1a: Invite a bunch of people, selected by lottery from all across the relevant community, to express interest in joining the citizens' assembly
In the UK, Australia, the USA, Canada, and across Europe this is typically done by sending "registration of interest" letters to households or individuals selected by lottery from a relevant address or residents' database. This could be the national postal service address database, an electoral register, or some other database - the important point is that ideally everyone should have an equal chance of receiving an invitation. In some countries (in mainland Europe, for example) this selection can be done from the government register of residents, or sometimes random phone dialling is used, or people are sent to door-knock on households selected by lottery.
Step 1b: From those that respond, select a representative sample by lottery
To perform this second lottery we have developed our Open Democratic Lottery Platform (OpenDLP) that uses the "fairest possible" algorithm to select a bunch of people that is a microcosm of the community in terms of age, gender, location, a socio-economic proxy (such as highest education level or occupation) and, if relevant, some attitudinal data (to make sure a climate assembly is not only people who care deeply about climate change, for example).
2. Bring them together in an assembly, typically at small tables or groups, and let everyone have their say.
This is typically achieved by bringing people face-to-face and sitting them in small groups at tables, with a trained, professional facilitator at each table, like this:
The meetings can happen online, or a mix of face-to-face and online. In any case, the entire group is typically split regularly into break-out groups with a facilitator, so everyone gets to have their say, and then comes back together to make collective decisions.
3. Have those most knowledgable about, or affected by, the issue address the assembly, bringing in diverse viewpoints and proposals.
An important aspect of any citizens' assembly is making sure assembly members have access to high quality and diverse information from a range of experts and other stakeholders. This is not easy, but it is possible. See the section below for more information about this process.
4. Let the participants discuss, listen and talk to each other – and give reasons for their opinions.
Process, process, process. We cannot over-emphasise the importance of the design of the deliberative process. Because of course it is not good enough to simply selected a broadly representative bunch of people by lottery and throw them in a room together and say "decide". So, typically, professional community engagement facilitators are used to design and run an assembly that alternates between plenary and small group discussions, between learning, enquiring, developing informed opinions, and finally making decisions.
This is often not a linear process but a more circular one, where participants learn and deliberate and make some decisions (such as prioritising options or people they want to hear more from) before going into more cycles of learn >> deliberate >> decide.
5. Decide! On what is the best way forward.
Ultimately citizens' assemblies are about making political recommendations and decisions, so when the assembly finishes, decisions must be made. Often the participants themselves will come up with the final list of questions to be voted on – and this list of questions should be made by consensus. Everyone should agree that the questions are the important things to decide upon. The answers themselves are a different matter. It may be that the answer is a simple "yes" or "no" to each question, but more often than not a more nuanced approach can be taken, with participants grading their enthusiasm for differing options (e.g. rating them on a scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree"), which gives more information about strong minority opposition (and the level and strength of support) for the various options.
However, as important as the final decisions and recommendations are, almost more important are the reasons for those recommendations. This is what sets a citizens' assembly apart from, for example, referenda or opinion polling. It is another reason why people trust citizens' assemblies – you not only find out what is decided, but why that decision was made.
What are the key elements of a citizens' assembly?
The OECD's Innovative Citizen Participation group, in its report "Catching the Deliberative Wave: Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions" outline eleven "good practice principles" (expanded upon here) for deliberative citizens' assemblies, which we have paraphrased here:
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Purpose: The aim should be clear, phrased neutrally, and linked to a well-defined public problem.
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Accountability: The outcome should influence public decisions. At a bare minimum the government should publicly respond to the participants’ recommendations, and preferably act on them.
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Transparency: The design, processes, and final reports should be available for public scrutiny, and all funding sources disclosed.
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Representative: The participants should be a representative microcosm of the general public, selected by lottery. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to be selected to participate.
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Inclusive: considering how to involve under-represented groups is important, and participation should be supported through remuneration, expenses, and/or providing or paying for childcare and eldercare.
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Information: Participants should have access to a wide range of accurate, relevant, and accessible evidence and expertise, including experts and advocates chosen by the citizens themselves.
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Deliberation: The process should facilitate participants in finding common ground for their collective recommendations.
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Time: adequate time for participants to learn, weigh the evidence, and develop informed recommendations must be given. Typically participants should meet for at least four full days.
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Integrity: The process should be run independently of the commissioning public authority.
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Privacy: There should be respect for participants’ privacy to protect them from undesired media attention and harassment, as well as to preserve participants’ independence.
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Evaluation: anonymous evaluation by the participants to assess the process should be conducted (e.g. on quantity and diversity of information, amount of time devoted to learning, independence of facilitation). The deliberative process should also be evaluated on the impact of final outcomes and implemented recommendations.
Question: what does "deliberative" mean?
According to Wikipedia, deliberation is "a process of thoughtfully weighing options". It's a form of respectful discussion, typically conducted in an informed environment, where diverse people try to understand each other, and each other's opinions, before coming to a decision. It is a way of trying to understand the moral crux of political decisions - the trade-offs and why people have differing priorities. It is not about coming to consensus, but about coming to a respectful appreciation of why opinions may differ.
Question: what's wrong with political bargaining?
At the moment, in electoral politics, decisions are usually made through political bargaining. This means our politicians offer a combination of incentives and threats to their political rivals to convince a majority of them to support a particular measure. Often there is some quid pro quo (a favour for a favour) and there is little, if any, attempt to deliberate (see above) and understand why people believe what they believe.
Furthermore, political bargaining usually reinforces existing power structures. Those with more power get to make the decisions and continue to exclude those with less power from having any meaningful impact.
Question: who provides the information?
Citizens' assemblies usually take place in informed environments. This means that the participants listen to a diverse array of experts and other stakeholders (such as campaign groups, support groups and charities, and directly affected individuals) before making a decision. Ensuring that these experts and stakeholders reflect the broad range of opinion is not simple, but it is possible. One key point to remember is that the experts are on tap but not on top - the assembly members draw on their knowledge but the experts have no say in the final decisions. Helping assembly members to think critically and recognise (conscious and unconscious) biases may be an important part of this process -- see the videos below. (Note that the videos will not display if you have refused cookies.)
Want to know even more? Then read these guides!
Here is a selection of guides, with differing levels of detail and different target audiences:
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