Project description
Exploring the power of citizen assemblies
In a time when contemporary democracies face immense pressure, a promising solution has emerged – empowering ordinary citizens to engage directly in politics. Citizen assemblies (CAs), composed of randomly selected citizens, have gained prominence since the 2010s, enabling diverse groups to deliberate on public issues and propose policy recommendations. While research has shed light on their internal dynamics, little is known about their broader impacts. The ERC-funded CITIZEN_IMPACT project will draw on decades of policy studies and governance research. Using a range of methods, including interviews and media analysis, it will examine the multifaceted influence of CAs in European democracies. The project explores their direct impact on policies, indirect influence on civil society, and their role in shaping public discourse.
Objective
To improve and even to save contemporary democracies under huge pressure and attack, a remedy has been attracting a large amount of attention: the strengthening of ordinary citizens’ opportunities to deliberate on and directly participate in politics. In this regard, many citizens’ assemblies (CAs) have been implemented by public authorities, especially since the 2010s. Convened through random selection, these assemblies are diversified groups of citizens that deliberate on a public problem and make policy recommendations. Existing research provides detailed descriptions of the internal dynamics of CAs and shows that most citizens are able to deliberate on complex issues. Nevertheless, they fail to identify and explain their more external impacts. In the context of the growing appeal for such mechanisms, CITIZEN_IMPACT asks the fundamental question: are CAs mere window dressing or do they lead to transformations in the functioning of the political system? It radically changes the dominant perspective on CAs by taking stock of several decades of research on policy studies, governance and institutional dynamics. It offers a systematic account of whether, how and why CAs matter in contemporary European countries by elaborating a new multidimensional conceptualisation of their impact: direct impact on policies, indirect impact on civil society and discursive impact on the public sphere. To address these three dimensions, the research design combines different methods to compare macro national trends (frame analysis of the media, survey with civil society organisations) and to disentangle complex processes (process tracing, interviews). Hence, CITIZEN_IMPACT provides a new horizon to tackle, both in the scientific community and the broader society, the role and contribution of such participatory and deliberative procedures in contemporary representative democracies.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
5000 Namur
Belgium