Feb 2, 2021
Citizen councils: An international perspective
Join us for a virtual event on 22 February 2021! #delibWave
Register for the webinar here
Around the world, public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens’ Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day — and often much longer — to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.
This “deliberative wave” has been building since the 1980s, gaining momentum since around 2010. Germany has been at the forefront of this trend; there are 48 examples, mostly of the famous Planungszelle (planning cells), featured in the OECD’s Catching the Deliberative Wave report.
In 2019, the German Citizens’ Assembly on Democracy brought together 160 citizens to develop ideas for additions to parliamentary democracy. On 13 January 2021, President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble, assumed patronage for the Citizens’ Assembly on Germany’s role in the world.
What’s next for Germany, and other countries, when it comes to the deliberative turn? Will these processes become integrated as a more permanent part of the democratic system?
Join us to discuss these questions! We will hear from:
Claudia Chwalisz, who leads the OECD’s work on innovative citizen participation and is co-author of the OECD report Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave
Peter MacLeod, Principal of MASS LBP, pioneering deliberative democracy in Canada for the past 13 years
Magali Plovie, President of the Francophone Brussels Parliament, a leader in the movement to institutionalise citizen deliberation through the Brussels Parliament’s mixed MP-citizen deliberative parliamentary committees
Presentations will be followed by a discussion with German MPs:
Anna Christmann, Bündnis 90 / Grüne Member of the Bundestag
Helge Lindh, SPD Member of the Bundestag
The event will be moderated by Matthias Rumpf, OECD. It will take place in English.
