Citizens’ assemblies and other representative deliberative processes have become increasingly common ways for public decision makers to involve citizens more directly in policy making. Designed in a way to involve a representative group of the public, they bring in voices that are not always heard and allow for collective intelligence to emerge. They result in informed recommendations that need to take into account trade-offs and constraints. Unlike most public decision making in groups, which occurs through voting, in citizens’ assemblies, the aim is to find common ground – “what can we all strongly support?”

In this session, we’ll discuss the benefits of random selection and deliberation when it comes to making high quality public decisions and to strengthening democracy. Claudia Chwalisz, who leads the OECD’s work on innovative citizen participation, will share the key findings of a new OECD report that analyses 289 representative deliberative processes across the world. Peter MacLeod, Principal of MASS LBP, will share his experience of organising over 30 deliberative processes in Canada, and Miriam Levin, Head of Community Action and Giving at the UK Department for Digital, Media, Culture & Sport, will provide her insights from leading the UK’s Innovation in Democracy programme.