ISPS DEMOCRACY SERIES: “Governing Citizens’ Assemblies”

In recent years, citizens’ assemblies — large randomly selected bodies of citizens convened to deliberate about political issues — have become a popular way for governments to address governance and legitimacy issues. These bodies of ordinary people are entrusted with the goal of generating policy recommendations and, sometimes, even legislative proposals on issues such as electoral reform, abortion, same-sex marriage, climate justice, and assisted suicide. As citizens’ assemblies may come to occupy a larger role in democratic governance, important questions need to be addressed: Who holds power within and over citizens’ assemblies? And who should? Citizens’ assemblies have so far been governed from the outside by government officials, experts, and professional facilitators. How much of the power belongs and should belong to the citizen participants themselves?   This conference at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies assembled academics, political leaders, and practitioners to explore these critical questions. The focus was on the recent French Citizens Conventions, respectively on Climate and End of Life, which explicitly thematized the question of governance.   Link: