the global coalition for democracy

Citizens' Assemblies

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Citizens' assemblies see everyday citizens who were drawn by lot discuss and draft recommendations to inform political decision-making. Assemblies are a valuable instrument to map exisiting opinions on certain topics and can allow for a fact-informed, depoliticized debate.

Around the world, local, national and even international citizens' assemblies are giving randomly selected citizens an opportunity to help shape policy-making. By ensuring that the members of the assembly are representative of the population as a whole across certain characteristics, citizens' assemblies can help introduce perspectives that are often overlooked in traditional decision-making. Through their independence from political party processes, assemblies have been particularly succesful in opening up the conversation around on difficult and deadlocked topics. Over the past years, Democracy International has cooperated with and assisted several assemblies around the globe.