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Citizen’s Assembly Article (Citizens’ assembly) :

Components of Citizens' Assemblies

Random Selection:

A crucial component of Citizens’ Assemblies, random selection 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 due to the additional variable of self-selection and contrived over-representation of minorities. The use of lot in governance has historic significance and was actually famously implemented in the Athenian democracy and various European communities to assist in governance.

Process

• CA ensures that democratic deliberation take place in a relatively small and manageable assembly the citizens’ assembly offers the prospect that the people themselves, rather than special interest groups, can take control of the proposal or agenda setting process.

Advantages of Citizens’ Assemblies:

Successfully breaches the border of direct democracy by accomplishing two of the three general components of such.

Representative and Inclusive

• Manin, Representative Democracy Issues
• Median Voter

Cognitive Diversity

A study conducted by Lu Hong and Scott Page contends that cognitive diversity is an important element of effective problem solving. Deliberation amongst a diverse group can produce better results since unique perspectives and interpretations generally enhance analysis of an issue.

Deliberation

• Open debate by the general public is not needed to cure the chief mischief of traditional modes of direct democracy.  Perhaps what is needed is a genuinely public forum for deliberation over the agenda; one that cannot be easily captured by special interests.
• The citizens’ assembly embodies the two central requirements for direct democracy: it permits open and public deliberation about future legislation, albeit among a small but genuinely representative body of citizens; and it permits ratification or endorsement of legislation by the whole electorate

Common Interest

• Excludes elected politicians from making certain kinds of decisions.  Electoral reform, redistricting, campaign finance law, and the regulation of political speech are not well managed by self interested politicians.
• Permit the people to decide what to do on a specific issue where politicians had self serving interests and could not be trusted to decide dispassionately: the choice of the electoral rules by which they themselves would compete for office.

Major Criticisms

Lack of Order

Is this a good model for deliberation.

Incompetence of the Common Individual

A central criticism of the Citizen Assembly model and random selection more generally is that the members of the assembly are incompetent when it comes to governing. The “average citizen” in a country, some argue, is unequipped to lead, especially since the person would be of average intelligence and competence.

Do Citizen Assemblies Incur Elitism?

Some worry it creates a new elite

Bibliography:

John Ferejohn,“The Citizens’Assembly Model,” in M. E. Warren et H. Pearse, 
(eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy, The British Columbia Citizens’Assembly, p. 192-213.

Graham Smith, Democratic Innovations, Chp 3

Hélène Landemore,“Deliberation, cognitive diversity, and democratic 
inclusiveness: an epistemic argument for the random selection of representatives,” 
Synthèse

Warren, M. E. & Pearse, H. (Eds.).(2008). Designing deliberative democracy: The British Columbia citizens’ assembly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Current Article Sections:

• Introduction
• Examples
• Independent Initiatives
  • Belgium
• Proposed Citizen Assemblies

Proposed Additions:

1. Enhancing Current Sections: I want to elaborate on the current sections provided.
   • Introduction: summarize better, add a bit a more context
   • Example Section: I am going to divide this section into several separate subsections so as to elaborate on each of the case studies.
     • There are already articles concerning the Assemblies in British Columbia and Ontario, but I am going to either create a sub section or separate article all together for the other examples, which are just as important and interesting
3. Add the “Citizen Assembly Constitution” Section:
4. Add "The Median Voter” Section: Citizen Assemblies aim to align legislation with the will of “The Median Voter” in attempt to tailor policy to the common interest. Is thought that Citizen Assemblies do just this.
5. Add “The Role of Random Selection” Section: What are the significance and implications of Lot and how Citizen Assemblies use this mechanism.
   1. Representation statistically
   2. Elaborate on the process of the selection in the examples
   3. Manin, Athenian Democracy, European examples
6. Add “Single Transferable Vote” Section:
7. Add “The Role of Education” Section: Summarize and analyze the education modules provided to those selected for the assembly and the role of information and experience.
8. Add “ The Process of Deliberation” Section:
   1. Learning and decision making process in CA
   2. Deliberation with the sphere of the CA and also the larger public sphere
9. Add “Citizen Summit” Section:
10. Add “Major Criticisms of Citizen Assemblies” section:
    1. Representative Gov. is necessary for order, making direct government unwise.
       1. Schumpeter’s point anticipated the findings of modern students of public opinion on this point.  Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Harper, 1942.   John Zaller argues that the mass public has almost no attitudes about the public issues and policies; see his Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge, 1992)
    2. Questionable whether it is a good Model for Public Deliberation?
    3. Is it actually representative?
    4. Does the CA status incur elitism?

Copy of Entire Current Article:

Citizens' assembly is a body formed from the citizens of a modern state to deliberate on an issue or issues of national importance. Typically, 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. In many cases, the state will require these proposals to be accepted by the general public through a referendum before becoming law.

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. In Iceland, citizens' assemblies have been used to inform broader constitutional reform. Similar initiatives have been proposed in the UK and Ireland.

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

Contents

1 Examples:

1.1 Independent initiatives

2 Proposed citizens' assemblies

3 See also

4 References

Main articles: Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia), Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (Ontario) and National Assembly of 1851

Citizens' assemblies have been used in British Columbia (2004) and Ontario (2006) in Canada, in the Netherlands (2006) and in Iceland (2009 and 2010). The citizens' assemblies in Canada and the Netherlands dealt with the question of electoral system reform. In 2010, the citizens' assembly in Iceland was tasked with overseeing the creation of a new constitution. It followed a 2009 grass-roots' citizens' assembly that look at broader questions of Icelandic civic values.

In each of these examples, citizens were selected through a semi-random process that ensured an even geographic and demographic spread of participants. Participation was voluntary, invitations were sent out randomly to people listed on the electoral register inviting interested people to respond. The final participants were selected from those who responded in a manner that ensured a fair representation of people from different places and backgrounds. 142 people participated in the Dutch citizens' assembly, 160 in the British Columbia citizens' assembly and 103 took part in the Ontario citizen's assembly. The 2010 Icelandic Constitutional Assembly composed of 25 elected participants, and followed a National Forum of 950 people. Participants in the Constitutional Council were full-time and entitled to a leave of absence from work for the duration of the Assembly, which lasted four months. Participants in the Canadian and Dutch citizens' assemblies were part-time. These assemblies lasted much longer.

As part of participating in the assembly, members in the Canadian and Dutch assemblies were given introductory courses to electoral politics before receiving presentation on alternative proposals for electoral reform and deliberating on their recommendations. The recommendations from the Canadian citizens' assemblies went direct to a referendum.

The recommendations of the Ontario citizens' assembly were rejected in the ensuing referendum by 63% of voters, meaning the status quo remained. The recommendations from the British Columbia citizens' assembly were accepted by 57.7% of voters in a referendum and were supported by a majority in 77 of the 79 electoral districts. However, the referendum required approval by 60% of votes and simple majorities in 60% of the 79 districts in order to pass. Consequently, no change ensued, and the recommendations were rejected by 60.9% of voters in a follow-up referendum[1] after a public education campaign.

The recommendations from the Netherlands' Citizens' Assembly (Burgerforum) went to the Dutch national parliament, where they were adopted as law.

The Icelandic Constitutional Council has finished its work and has presented its proposed new constitution to the Icelandic parliament. In reality the Althing can make changes to the new document and could even reject it outright — although that seems unlikely.[2][3][4]

Independent initiatives[edit]

In Belgium, the G1000 is a citizens initiative funded entirely by voluntary donations. It was launched during the Summer of 2011 with an online survey to identify issues citizens really cared about. More than 5,000 suggestions were put forward and ranked by thousands of citizens. After clustering of similar themes, 25 themes were put forward for a second round of voting. Next, a full day of deliberation bringing one thousand randomly selected people together took place on November 11, 2011, at Tour & Taxis in Brussels. The 1,000 target was not reached but over 700 of those who responded to invitations attended. Spread over tables with 10 people per table and after having been briefed by experts, the participants drew on proposals around the themes that emanated from the online process.

A smaller group of citizens, the G32, will gather regularly over the coming months to refine these proposals and transform them into concrete recommendations. These recommendations will be put to the rest of the country in April 2012.[5][6]

Proposed citizens' assemblies[edit]

In Ireland, political reform has become a popular topic since 2008 due to the Irish financial crisis and also due to accumulating revelations of political corruption. As a means to decide on political reforms, the idea of citizens' assemblies — and other similar processes — are gaining in popularity. During the 2011 general election, most of the smaller parties and all of the major political parties that were then represented in parliament included commitments to supporting a process of this kind. Subsequently, the new government has proposed a "Constitutional Convention", 67 of whose 100 members would be ordinary citizens chosen randomly from the electoral register.

Several lobby groups are also campaigning for a citizens' assembly in Ireland. These include We the Citizens , who hosted a citizens' assembly in order to demonstrate the merit of citizens' assemblies in practice,[7] and Second Republic , a grass-roots group who produced a Proposal for an Citizens' Assembly on Political Reform in Ireland.[8] The topic has also been extensively discussed on the academic blog, politicalreform.ie .

In the United Kingdom, following a series of public scandals in 2001, a petition campaign has begun to form a people's jury of 1,000 people to investigate issues around media ownership, the financial sector, MP selections and accountability and other matters.[9]

Some political reformers have proposed establishing citizens' assemblies as permanent, elected bodies. Typically, these assemblies are proposed to consist of up to several thousand members elected at the same time as the traditional legislature. Due to the proposed size it is typically envisioned that such an assembly would conduct most of its business online, with their main power being the ability to approve or veto bills passed by the legislature.