Politics & power
Citizens' assemblies: letting ordinary people break the deadlock
12 min
When politicians can't resolve divisive issues, some countries have turned to randomly selected citizens who deliberate and recommend policy. Explore how Ireland's assemblies moved the needle on hard questions, and whether it's a fix for broken democracy.
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Show notes
Stratified random sampling creates a mini-public that mirrors the census data of the entire population.
Removing re-election pressure allows ordinary citizens to prioritize technical policy over partisan optics.
Ireland used a ninety-nine person assembly to move the abortion debate past slogans toward legal specifics.
Assembly recommendations provided the political cover necessary for the twenty sixteen national referendum.
Public trust increases when policy recommendations come from ordinary neighbors rather than professional politicians.
Governments often cherry-pick assembly results, such as ignoring recommendations on tax reform and housing policy.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Mechanics of Sortition3 min
- 3The Irish Experiment3 min
- 4The Psychology of Deliberation3 min
- 5Limitations and the 'Cherry-Picking' Problem3 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Frontiers | Citizens' Assemblies for Referendums and Constitutional Reforms: Is There an “Irish Model” for Deliberative Democracy?
- Citizens' Assembly
- The Irish Citizens' Assembly Project
- FAQ | Citizens' Assembly
- Citizens' Assembly (Ireland)
- The Irish Citizens' Assembly - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation
- Citizens' Assemblies: Not Made to Legislate? - Democracy Technologies
- Citizen's Assemblies in Ireland: inspiring takeaways, Art O'Leary | Autumn School 2023
- Irish Citizens' Assembly: A Contemporary Case of Direct Participation
- Ireland weighs permanent citizens' assembly model
- 2013-2014 Convention on the Constitution | Citizens' Assembly
- The Effects of Mixed Membership in a Deliberative Forum: The Irish Constitutional Convention of 2012–2014
- https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1102&context=aaschmedart
- Ninth Report of the Convention on the Constitution
- Recruitment of the 99 Citizen Members and Substitutes of the Citizens’ Assembly
- Selection of Members | Citizens' Assembly
- First Report and Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly
- ‘Systematizing’ constitutional deliberation: the 2016–18 citizens’ assembly in Ireland: Irish Political Studies: Vol 34, No 1
- The Effects of Mixed Membership in a Deliberative Forum: The Irish Constitutional Convention of 2012–2014
- Measuring Epistemic Deliberation on Polarized Issues: The Case of Abortion Provision in Ireland
- Deliberation in Constitutional Amendment: Reappraising Ireland’s Deliberative Mini-Publics
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