Citizen Assemblies: Democracy by Deliberation
How randomly selected citizens are brought together to deliberate on policy questions — from Ireland's groundbreaking assemblies to France's Citizens' Convention on Climate.
A Different Kind of Direct Democracy
Citizen assemblies represent a fundamentally different approach to direct democracy. Instead of asking millions of voters to decide a question in a few seconds at the ballot box, a citizen assembly selects a representative sample of the population — typically 100-200 people — through stratified random selection (sortition). These citizens meet over weeks or months, hear from experts and stakeholders, deliberate in small groups, and produce recommendations.
The key insight behind citizen assemblies is that informed, deliberative participation produces better outcomes than uninformed mass voting. When citizens have time to learn about an issue, hear opposing arguments, and discuss with peers, their views often change — and the resulting recommendations tend to be more nuanced and evidence-based than what either politicians or referendum campaigns produce.
