Citizens assembly

A citizens' assembly is a body formed from the citizens of a modern state to deliberate on an issue or issues of national importance. The membership of a citizens' assembly is randomly selected, as in other forms of sortition. The purpose is to employ a cross-section of the public to study the options available to the state on certain questions and to propose answers to these questions through rational and reasoned discussion and the use of various methods of inquiry such as directly questioning experts. In many cases, the state will require these proposals to be accepted by the general public through a referendum before becoming law. The Citizens’ assembly aims to reinstall trust in the political process by taking direct ownership of decision-making.

The use of citizens' assemblies to reach decisions in this way is related to the traditions of deliberative democracy and popular sovereignty in political theory. Citizens' assemblies have been used in Canada and the Netherlands to deliberate on reform of the system used to elect politicians in those countries.

Ordinarily, citizens' assemblies are state initiatives. However, there are also examples of independent citizens' assemblies, such as the ongoing Le G1000 in Belgium or the 2011 We the Citizens initiative in Ireland.

Membership of a Citizens’ Assembly is deliberate, specific and integral to fulfilling the assembly’s goal. Some of the components of membership for the assemblies are described below.

A crucial component of Citizens’ Assemblies, quasi-random selection or sortition is used to promote political equality and inclusiveness in the Assembly. Unlike elections, which many claim elects elite, selection by lot permits true representation of any respective community. Random lotteries have become an alternative to elections on the grounds of equality, cost efficiency, and representativeness. The selection of participants in Citizens’ Assemblies aspires to be completely random but is actually only nearly random, therefore quasi-random, due to the additional variable of self-selection and contrived over-representation of minorities. The issue with pure random selection is that people cannot be forced to participate, and those who opt out of participation make the citizens’ assembly less than representative. Due to this variable, pure randomness must be abandoned and certain quotas on a basis of gender, ethnicity, or various other categories considered, which has been applied in citizens’ assemblies in the past. Though this makes the selection process only quasi-random, some posit that it is a better option. The use of lot in governance has historic significance and was actually famously implemented in the Athenian democracy and various European communities to allow for more fair governance.

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Wikipedia