Available now: OECD ‘Catching the Deliberative Wave’ report
Access the OECD report and highlights here.
The OECD has collected evidence and data that support the idea that citizen participation in public decision making can deliver better policies, strengthen democracy, and build trust. This report focuses on representative deliberative processes in particular, as part of a wider effort by democratic institutions to become more participatory and open to informed citizen input and collective intelligence.
It is the first empirical comparative study that analyses how representative deliberative processes (such as Citizens’ Assemblies and Juries) are being used for public decision making around the world.
Drawing on data collected from 289 case studies (282 from OECD countries) from 1986 to October 2019, and in collaboration with an international advisory group, the OECD has identified twelve distinct models of deliberative processes, evaluated what a ‘successful’ process entails, developed good practice principles, and explored three routes to institutionalising citizen deliberation.
Public authorities across the world and at all levels of government have used around 300 Citizens’ Assemblies, Juries, and Panels to involve citizens in tackling complex policy problems.
The “deliberative wave” has been building since the 1980s, gaining momentum since 2010. OECD estimates suggest that a further 30–40 processes were ongoing or announced after October 2019.
Recently, ambitious public institutions have moved from projects to permanence.
They are doing so by creating new deliberative democratic institutions like the Ostbelgien Citizens’ Council — 24 citizens selected by civic lottery to hold agenda-setting power. There are 14 examples — from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Poland, Spain, the US — where public deliberation has been embedded into policy making cycles and governance arrangements to make it a core part of how public decisions are taken.
Urban planning (43 examples), health (32), environment (29), strategic planning (26) and infrastructure (26) are top policy areas for which governments have commissioned representative deliberative processes.
These issues are particularly salient in light of the coronavirus crisis as governments make efforts to square their ambitions for green deals with needs to restart their economies, and begin to make structural changes in light of the need for physical distancing. While these are technical issues, they are driven by values and involve many trade-offs.
As governments are facing increasing pressure about lockdown exit strategies, transition measures, and long-term questions about our future societies and economies, representative deliberative processes like Citizens’ Assemblies could help them take these hard decisions with greater legitimacy.
Public deliberation can help governments to navigate the issues that normally divide us.
The wealth of evidence we collected in the report shows that convening a wide-cross section of society for numerous days to learn, deliberate, and develop collective, informed recommendations is an effective way of overcoming polarisation and finding consensus on the thorniest policy dilemmas. This is particularly true for issues that are values-driven, require weighing trade-offs, and involve long-term concerns that go beyond the short-term incentives of electoral cycles.
For example, the Irish Citizens’ Assemblies that tackled issues of same-sex marriage and abortion were important precursors to the referendums that ushered in historic change on these two issues that were polarising for decades.
At the time of publication, the coronavirus crisis and the Black Lives Matter protests are the prominent events of 2020 so far. Their complexity can’t be summarised here, but in many ways these are catalysts for accelerating a rethinking of our democratic institutions, for them to be more inclusive, effective, collaborative, and deliberative.
The examples that we explore in the OECD report can hopefully offer some inspiration for long-term governance changes that would allow a wide diversity of citizens to play a meaningful role in setting the agenda and in shaping policies permanently.
We will be continuing our work on the future of democracy in our Participo series on Digital for Deliberation and New Democratic Institutions, by turning this research into practical guidance for policy makers, supporting countries to implement deliberative exercises, and integrating deliberative approaches into our methodology. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss opportunities for collaboration!
For more information, please contact Claudia Chwalisz (claudia.chwalisz@oecd.org) and Ieva Cesnulaityte (ieva.cesnulaityte@oecd.org).
