A Blueprint for the EU Citizens’ Assembly

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Carsten Berg, Claudia Chwalisz, Kalypso Nicolaidis, and Yves Sintomer: “The European Union has recognised that citizens are not sufficiently involved or empowered in its governance—how can we solve this problem?

Today, ahead of President Von Der Leyen’s 2023 State of the Union address on 13 September, we’re proud to co-publish a paper with the European University Institute written by four leading experts. The paper offers a blueprint for a solution: establishing the EU Citizens’ Assembly (EUCA) to share power with the other three institutions of the European Council, Commission, and Parliament.

After all, “a new push for democracy” is one of the European Commission’s self-declared top priorities for this coming year. This needs to be more than lip service. Unless citizens are given genuine agency and voice in deciding the big issues facing us in this age of turbulence, the authors argue, we will have lost the global battle in defence of democracy. The foundation has been laid for the EUCA with the success of lottery-selected EU Citizens’ Panels during the Conference on the Future of Europe, as well as those initiated by the European Commission over the past year, but more work must be done. 

In the paper, the authors explain why such an Assembly is needed, then suggest how it could be designed in an iterative fashion, operated, and what powers it could have in the EU system.

“In a broader context of democratic crisis and green, digital, and geopolitical transitions, we need to open up our imaginations to radical political change,” the authors say. “Political and technocratic elites must start giving up some control and allow for a modicum of self-determination by citizens.”..(More)”

Crafting the future: involving young people in urban design

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Alastair Bailey: “About 60 per cent of urban populations will be under 18 years of age by 2030, according to UN Habitat, but attempts to involve young people in the design of their cities remain in their infancy. Efforts to enlist this generation have often floundered due to a range of problems — not least an unwillingness to listen to their needs.

“The actual involvement of young people in planning is negligible” says Simeon Shtebunaev, a Birmingham City University doctoral researcher in youth and town planning and researcher at urban social enterprise Social Life. However, new technologies offer a way forward. Digitisation has come to be seen as a “panacea to youth engagement” in many cities, notes Shtebunaev.

Hargeisa, the largest city of Somaliland in the Horn of Africa and home to 1.5mn people, has already been demonstrating what can be achieved by digitally engaging with young people — notably through the Minecraft video game. This enables users to design and build structures in a manner similar to expensive 3D modelling software.

Despite large-scale reconstruction, the city still bears the scars of the 1981-91 civil war, during which former Somalian dictator Said Barre sought to wipe out members of the city’s dominant Isaaq clan to enforce his own rule. Up to an estimated 200,000 Isaaq died.

In September 2019, though, “Urban Visioning Week” brought Hargeisa residents together over five days to discuss the city’s future as part of the UN’s Joint Programme on Local Governance. The aim was for residents to identify the city’s problems and what improvements they felt were needed…(More)”.

Rethinking the Role of Nudge in Public Policy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Sema Müge Özdemiray: “The view of achieving the desired results in public policies depends on steering individuals, with decisions and actions incompatible with rationality, in a predictable way has pushed policymakers to collaborate with psychology methods and theories. Accordingly, in the recent policy design of public authorities, there is an increasing interest in the nudge approach, which is considered a less costly, more liberal, more citizen-focused alternative to traditional policy instruments. Nudging, which has produced effective solutions for different social problems, has also brought with it many criticisms. These criticisms have led to questioning alternative and advanced new policy tools in the field of behavioral public policy. In this study, the “nudge-plus” approach is discussed as one of these policy tools, which was put forward by Peter John and Gerry Stoker and which argues that the criticisms directed to nudge can be overcome by incorporating a citizen-oriented perspective into the nudge approach. This study aims to draw attention to the prediction that the use of the nudge-plus method in public policy design can produce more effective results in line with today’s participatory and collaborative administration approach…(More)”.

It’s like jury duty, but for getting things done

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Hollie Russon Gilman and Amy Eisenstein: “Citizens’ assemblies have the potential to repair our broken politics…Imagine a democracy where people come together and their voices are heard and are translated directly into policy. Frontline workers, doctors, teachers, friends, and neighbors — young and old — are brought together in a random, representative sample to deliberate the most pressing issues facing our society. And they are compensated for their time.

The concept may sound radical. But we already use this method for jury duty. Why not try this widely accepted practice to tackle the deepest, most crucial, and most divisive issues facing our democracy?

The idea — known today as citizens’ assemblies — originated in ancient Athens. Instead of a top-down government, Athens used sortition — a system that was horizontal and distributive. The kleroterion, an allotment machine, randomly selected citizens to hold civic office, ensuring that the people had a direct say in their government’s dealings….(More)”.

The Worst People Run for Office. It’s Time for a Better Way.

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Adam Grant: “On the eve of the first debate of the 2024 presidential race, trust in government is rivaling historic lows. Officials have been working hard to safeguard elections and assure citizens of their integrity. But if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.

If you think that sounds anti-democratic, think again. The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens many government officials were selected through sortition — a random lottery from a pool of candidates. In the United States, we already use a version of a lottery to select jurors. What if we did the same with mayors, governors, legislators, justices and even presidents?

People expect leaders chosen at random to be less effective than those picked systematically. But in multiple experiments led by the psychologist Alexander Haslam, the opposite held true. Groups actually made smarter decisions when leaders were chosen at random than when they were elected by a group or chosen based on leadership skill.

Why were randomly chosen leaders more effective? They led more democratically. “Systematically selected leaders can undermine group goals,” Dr. Haslam and his colleagues suggest, because they have a tendency to “assert their personal superiority.” When you’re anointed by the group, it can quickly go to your head: I’m the chosen one.

When you know you’re picked at random, you don’t experience enough power to be corrupted by it. Instead, you feel a heightened sense of responsibility: I did nothing to earn this, so I need to make sure I represent the group well. And in one of the Haslam experiments, when a leader was picked at random, members were more likely to stand by the group’s decisions.

Over the past year I’ve floated the idea of sortition with a number of current members of Congress. Their immediate concern is ability: How do we make sure that citizens chosen randomly are capable of governing?

In ancient Athens, people had a choice about whether to participate in the lottery. They also had to pass an examination of their capacity to exercise public rights and duties. In America, imagine that anyone who wants to enter the pool has to pass a civics test — the same standard as immigrants applying for citizenship. We might wind up with leaders who understand the Constitution…(More)”.

Innovation Can Reboot American Democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Suzette Brooks Masters: “A thriving multiracial pluralist democracy is an aspiration that many people share for America. Far from being inevitable, the path to such a future is uncertain.

To stretch how we think about American democracy’s future iterations and begin to imagine the contours of the new, we need to learn from what’s emergent. So I’m going to take you on a whirlwind tour of some experiments taking place here and abroad that are the bright spots illuminating possible futures ahead.

My comments are informed by a research report I wrote last year called Imagining Better Futures for American Democracy. I interviewed dozens of visionaries in a range of fields and with diverse perspectives about the future of our democracy and the role positive visioning and futures thinking could play in reinvigorating it.

As I discuss these bright spots, I want to emphasize that what is most certain now is the accelerating and destabilizing change we are experiencing. It’s critical therefore to develop systems, institutions, norms and mindsets to navigate that change boldly and responsibly, not pretend that tomorrow will continue to look like today.

Yet when paradigms shift, as they inevitably do and I would argue are right now, that’s a messy and confusing time that can cause lots of anxiety and disorientation. During these critical periods of transition, we must set aside or ‘hospice” some assumptions, mindsets, practices, and institutions, while midwifing, or welcoming in, new ones.

This is difficult to do in the best of times but can be especially so when, collectively, we suffer from a lack of imagination and vision about what American democracy could and should become.

It’s not all our fault — inertia, fear, distrust, cynicism, diagnosis paralysis, polarization, exceptionalism, parochialism, and a pervasive, dystopian media environment are dragging us down. They create very strong headwinds weakening both our appetite and our ability to dream bigger and imagine better futures ahead.

However, focusing on and amplifying promising innovations can change that dysfunctional dynamic by inspiring us and providing blueprints to act upon when the time is right.

Below I discuss two main types of innovations in the political sphere: election-related structural reforms and governance reforms, including new forms of civic engagement and government decision-making…(More)”.

Inclusive Cyber Policy Making

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Toolkit by Global Digital Partnership: “Marginalised perspectives, particularly from women and LGBTQ+ communities, are largely absent in current cyber norm discussions. This is a serious issue, as marginalised groups often face elevated and specific threats in cyberspace

Our bespoke toolkit provides policymakers and other stakeholders with a range of resources to address this lack of inclusion, including:

  • A how-to guide on developing an inclusive process to develop a cybernorm or implement existing agreed norms
  • An introduction to key terms and concepts relevant to inclusivity and cybernorms
  • Key questions for facilitating inclusive stakeholder mapping processes
  • A mapping of regional and global cybernorm processes…(More)”.

What types of health evidence persuade actors in a complex policy system?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Geoff Bates, Sarah Ayres, Andrew Barnfield, and Charles Larkin: “Good quality urban environments can help to prevent non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, mental health conditions and diabetes that account for three quarters of deaths globally (World Health Organisation, 2022). More commonly however, poor quality living conditions contribute to poor health and widening inequalities (Adlakha & John, 2022). Consequently, many public health advocates hope to convince and bring together the stakeholders who shape urban development to help create healthier places.

Evidence is one tool that can be used to convince these stakeholders from outside the health sector to think more about health outcomes. Most of the literature on the use of evidence in policy environments has focused on the public sector, such as politicians and civil servants (e.g., Crow & Jones, 2018). However, urban development decision-making processes involve many stakeholders across sectors with different needs and agendas (Black et al., 2021). While government sets policy and regulatory frameworks, private sector organisations such as property developers and investors drive urban development and strongly influence policy agendas.

In our article recently published in Policy & Politics, What types of evidence persuade actors in a complex policy system?, we explore the use of evidence to influence different groups across the urban development system to think more about health outcomes in their decisions…

The key findings of the research were that:

  1. Evidence-based narratives have wide appeal. Narratives based on real-world and lived experiences help stakeholders to form an emotional connection with evidence and are effective for drawing attention to health problems. Powerful outcomes such as child health and mortality data are particularly persuasive. This builds on literature promoting the use of storytelling approaches for public sector actors by demonstrating its applicability within the private and third sectors….(More)”

De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Min Reuchamps, Julien Vrydagh and Yanina Welp: “Citizens’ Assemblies (CAs) are flourishing around the world. Quite often composed of randomly selected citizens, CAs, arguably, come as a possible answer to contemporary democratic challenges. Democracies worldwide are indeed confronted with a series of disruptive phenomena such as a widespread perception of distrust and growing polarization as well as low performance. Many actors seek to reinvigorate democracy with citizen participation and deliberation. CAs are expected to have the potential to meet this twofold objective. But, despite deliberative and inclusive qualities of CAs, many questions remain open. The increasing popularity of CAs call for a holistic reflection and evaluation on their origins, current uses and future directions.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies showcases the state of the art around the study of CAs and opens novel perspectives informed by multidisciplinary research and renewed thinking about deliberative participatory processes. It discusses the latest theoretical, empirical, and methodological scientific developments on CAs and offers a unique resource for scholars, decision-makers, practitioners, and curious citizens to better understand the qualities, purposes, promises but also pitfalls of CAs…(More)”.

The Strategy Room: an innovative approach for involving communities in shaping local net zero pathways

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Nesta: “Between January and March 2023, we piloted a novel digital engagement tool, The Strategy Room, to help local authorities understand their residents’ priorities for net-zero policies on the topics of heat, travel and food.

Twelve local authorities ran 66 public engagement sessions between them, attracting almost 640 participants to make policy recommendations for their local areas. This report presents the preliminary results from the pilot study….

Our results show the value of experimenting with new tools for public engagement on net zero that can combine local specificity and comparisons at a national level. To support other similar initiatives in the future and build public support for the policies that will help the UK to transition to net zero by 2050, decision makers should consider the following.

Change how they commission public engagement

Establishing a Citizen Participation Service in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to coordinate and channel resources to local climate teams would help demonstrate the governments’ commitment to putting people at the centre of net-zero policy.

Change how they frame and communicate net-zero policies

Use creative public engagement that allows people to deliberate and learn about policies through interactive, engaging material. Communicate the wider co-benefits of net-zero policies. In particular, emphasise general benefits related to health as well as incorporating people’s current concerns like energy insecurity into messaging.

Change how they tailor net-zero policy at national and local levels

The UK Government needs to lead by example with strategic commitments to help councils decarbonise the housing stock and food supplies they’re responsible for, if it expects people to change how they heat their homes and the food they eat…(More)”.