Your one-stop shop to the world’s best forms of citizen participation and deliberation, from the OECD
Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash
Last week we ran an item on a plan to make citizen deliberation a permanent feature of the German government, based on a synthesis of the best of citizens’ democracy and assembly methods around the world.
It seems to be the season…because here’s another massively authoritative guide, this from the OECD, to “Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave” (site here, PDF here).
Along with some useful and stimulating history and context, this report is really helpful in that it gives a very clear guide to the dominant models of democratic innovation around empowered citizens - see the tables below for that, and go to p.35 of the online report.
Of particular interest to A/UK is that Citizens Councils make it to the OECD’s list. These are based on the methods of Dynamic Facilitation, which we have started to use in our own collaboratories and consultations (Extinction Rebellion are also following these methods). Below is the OECD’s assessment of Citizens Councils (page link):
The Citizens’ Council is a model of representative deliberative process that has been used most frequently in Austria on the local and regional levels to address a wide range of policy questions, mostly environmental concerns and public services.
The Citizens’ Council (or Bürgerrat in German) was developed in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg and is based the model of the Wisdom Council, created by Jim Rough.
As it became prominently used by local governments in Austria, the Citizens’ Council is today a more established model than its predecessor, the Wisdom Council. The model was designed to address community issues in a quick and inexpensive manner, strengthening community ties along the way.
Citizens’ Councils are typically composed of 15 randomly selected citizens and last 1.7 consecutive days on average. As a shorter process, it has less distinct learning and deliberation phases, which are usually intertwined.
The first part of the process allows participants to identify issues of public interest to be discussed by the Citizens’ Council within the proposed subject, and there is no strictly predetermined remit. In practice, this is less often the case and there is a clearly defined problem to be addressed.
During the next step, citizens engage in facilitated deliberation, develop solutions to the problems identified, and produce collective recommendations.
A distinguishing feature is dynamic facilitation, where the facilitator encourages participants to speak their minds without having to follow a strict agenda or process. This creates a safe place for everyone to express themselves, which can lead to openness, inclusion, and creative solutions.
Recommendations are then presented and discussed with the broader public in a Citizens’ Café, open to anyone. Finally, the Citizens’ Council’s recommendations are presented to the local government and a small group of participants are assigned to follow up with the government regarding the recommendations’ implementation.
As there is no separate learning phase, Citizens’ Councils do not require many resources and long preparation, and are well-suited to be used as a helpful way to periodically give citizens an opportunity to bring salient issues to the attention of local or regional government.
Citizens' Council on mobility in Vorarlberg (2018-2019)
The state government of Vorarlberg brought together 30 randomly selected citizens for one and a half days to develop principles and priorities in the field of mobility and transport for the state of Vorarlberg for the next ten to fifteen years. Following the Citizens’ Council, a Citizens’ Café took place, where the broader public could learn about the recommendations produced and discuss them with politicians and public administration.