Terrifying/Inspiring Thought of the Week
Photo by Jakob Dalbjörn on Unsplash
From 1979 to 2023, at least 80,622 citizens have been randomly selected to participate in a deliberative process. Between September 2021 and September 2023, the OECD collected 160 new cases of representative deliberative processes (such as citizens’ assemblies, councils, and juries) where randomly selected citizens are invited by a public authority to learn, deliberate, and come up with informed recommendations to address a concrete public problem.
The pace of citizen assemblies gathering to solve our problems is increasing.
Maybe you should join one.
Yes, they usually are. But not always. You can often put your name in with no idea whether or not you will be chosen. Thanks for the note.
Unfortunately, sortition means you are chosen - randomly! - but in the spirit of your post we could build a local consensus to persuade our local authorities to institute a citizens assembly for an issue that is of local importance.