As we learned from the XR interview, an ever-present danger of deliberative democracy is that a government may host a citizens’ assembly or jury, and then ignore its recommendations.
Another danger is that the process itself could be manipulated, and engineered to produce a desired result. That’s what one columnist in The Spectator charges about the UK’s recent citizens’ jury on assisted suicide.
In her column, Melanie McDonagh casts doubt on the intentions behind the UK’s assembly. What happens, she asks, if the question being posed is drafted so narrowly that certain options are off the table from the beginning? Or if the organizers choose experts who skew one way or the other?
Of course, “skewing” is inevitable in any political process, and it isn’t always conscious. Marjan Ehsassi, author of the new book Activated Citizenship, told me last year that organizers often have the best of intentions, “but there are small decisions made throughout the design and implementation process that can have a big [adverse] impact.”
One aspect of citizens’ assemblies that often is not participatory is the choice of topic. In the vast majority of cases, the topic is chosen by a funder (such as large foundations) or government.
Who says that decisions on climate action or assisted suicide are the topics that citizens most want to help shape? Maybe it’s homelessness, income inequality or even a country’s policy related to Israel and Palestine.
Early this year, a new model for citizens selecting assembly topics was piloted by the local government of Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It followed a rather complicated, four-step process:
- An online solicitation of topic ideas, open to all residents, with the responses grouped into general categories.
- Discussion of the top 20 topic categories by an online panel of civil society stakeholders. This panel chose the top six.
- A vote to select three of the six by the city council
- A poll open to all residents on the three finalists.
At the very least, this process identifies the issues in which citizens would most like to be involved.
- PB
