What are Citizens’ Assemblies

Why Citizens’ Assemblies Are Needed

Even in established democracies like Switzerland, political systems face structural challenges that limit their capacity to address long-term societal issues. Citizens’ assemblies provide a complementary mechanism to strengthen decision-making and public trust. Key problems in the current system include:

1. Short-Term Focus of Politics
Elected representatives are often constrained by electoral cycles, prioritizing immediate concerns over long-term challenges such as climate change, public health, or social inequality.

2. Overrepresentation of Certain Groups
Political bodies may disproportionately reflect specific social, economic, or demographic groups, limiting the diversity of perspectives in policy-making.

3. Influence of Special Interests
Powerful lobby groups can disproportionately shape decisions, reducing the influence of ordinary citizens.

4. Democratic Fatigue and Low Trust
Many citizens feel disconnected from political processes, which reduces engagement and undermines trust in institutions.

5. Complexity of Modern Issues
Many societal challenges require careful, informed deliberation, which traditional political mechanisms may not allow.

Citizens’ assemblies address these gaps by providing a structured, impartial space for informed, representative deliberation.

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What Citizens’ Assemblies Are

A citizens’ assembly is a temporary, randomly selected group of citizens that deliberates on public issues and provides recommendations or legally binding decisions to authorities. Assemblies reflect society’s demographic diversity, including age, gender, education, ethnicity, and geography, ensuring that all voices are heard.

Participants receive balanced information from experts, deliberate collectively under professional facilitation, and draft recommendations based on shared understanding. Because members are not elected representatives, they can focus on the long-term public interest rather than electoral pressures.

In Switzerland

For those involving Citizens’ Democracy (not listed here) check out Our Projects

National

National Climate Council

In response to the climate crisis, the Green Party tabled a parliamentary initiative in 2020 for a national deliberative citizens’ council that would work alongside the Federal Council and parliamentary committees and whose members would be chosen by lot. However, after a vote at the end of 2021, the National Council did not follow up the initiative.

Cantonal

Democracy im Dialog (Bürgergespräche)

The project Demokratie im Dialog has been set up by Prof. Daniel Gut and other researchers and it has some similarities with Demoscan. The issue discussed in the Cantons of Solothurn and Bern is energy policy. 50 to100 randomly selected people who reflect the diversity of the population will participate over two sessions. One difference from other models is that after the first session the panel’s work is to be put online so other interested members of the initial randomly selected group of 2000 can contribute their ideas. After the second session, a final proposal is elaborated and discussed with the government. Ideas can be rejected by the government or parliament. However, this would have to be justified in detail.

Communal

Citizens’ Panel for more climate protection – Uster (2021/2022)

In August and September 2021, a Citizens’ Panel with 20 randomly selected citizens took place in Uster. The project is being supported by the Centre for Democracy (University of Zurich) and financed by the Department of Justice and Home Affairs of the Canton of Zurich. The panel focused on the areas of Climate Protection, responsible consumption and waste reduction and will send their recommendations to the local authorities in Uster.

Citizens’ Panel for a sustainable food system – Winterthur (2022)

In the spring of 2022, the city of Winterthur organized a citizens’ panel in cooperation with the Center for Democracy Aarau and the Department of Justice and Home Affairs of the Canton of Zurich. The topic was climate-appropriate nutrition in Winterthur.

3000 randomly drawn Winterthur citizens were invited to participate in the citizens’ panel. From those interested, 22 people were again drawn in January 2022 to form the citizens’ panel. During two weekends at the end of March and beginning of April, the participants dealt with the following questions: Local food production, foodwaste prevention, and urban catering options: How can we eat sustainably in Winterthur?

Demoscan Citizen Panel (Sion 2019, Geneva 2021, Bellinzona 2023)

The pilot project Demoscan was launched by Prof. Nenad Stoianovic and other researchers from the University of Geneva.

During the first Citizen Panel in Sion, 20 randomly selected citizens of the city of Sion met for two weekends in November 2019. They deliberated on a federal popular initiative on housing policy. The report from this panel was then sent to all residents in Sion before the Swiss public voted on it in February 2020.

During the second pilot, 20 citizens of Geneva were randomly selected on 4 June 2021. Their task was to deliberate for two weekends in September on an issue scheduled for a cantonal vote (pensions for cantonal councillors). They had to produce a two-page report outlining three arguments for and against the proposal under consideration, to be sent to residents before the vote.

The newest pilot project is ‘Demoscan Bellizona 2023′.

Citizens’ Forum Geneva (2020/2021)

The Citizens’ Forum set up in Geneva is an assembly of 30 people drawn by lot, whose composition reflects the diversity of the Geneva population (age, gender, level of education, etc.). It dealt with the issue: ‘How do we want to inhabit the territory of Geneva in order to live better together in respect of nature and to face climate change?’ The forum received training beforehand and consulted experts. After four weekends of work, the Citizens’ Forum has adopted 104 measures to answer the question.

Worldwide

Australia
Citizens Parliament

Belgium (Eupen)
Permanent citizens’ council and citizens’ assembly

Bürgerdialog (BE)

Canada (ON)
Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform or

National Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform (CAN)

Denmark
Climate Assembly*

Germany
Citizens’ Assembly on Climate* (official site DE)
Citizens’ Assembly on democracy

Finland
Citizens’ jury on climate actions*

France
Citizens’ Convention on the Climate*

Iceland
National Assembly 2009
National Forum 2010
Constitutional Council 2011

Ireland
The Citizens’ Assembly

Scotland
Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland
Climate Assembly*

Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland (UK)

Spain
Citizens’ assembly for climate (official site ES)*

UK
Climate Assembly UK (CAUK)*
Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit

Wales
Citizens’ assembly on the future of Wales

*For more information on these climate assemblies and translations go on Knoca’s website.

These examples demonstrate how citizens’ assemblies are a proven tool for integrating citizen input into policy worldwide.

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Key Principles and Core Values

Citizens’ assemblies are guided by principles that ensure inclusivity, fairness, and legitimacy:

• Random Selection of Participants: Every eligible citizen has a chance to participate, ensuring fairness and reducing bias.

• Demographic Representation: Assemblies mirror society in miniature, including age, gender, education, and geographic diversity. Stipends are provided to remove participation barriers.

• Independent Coordination: An impartial team manages selection, agenda design, and expert invitations, free from political or civil-service influence.

• Inclusivity and Stakeholder Access: Citizens can invite additional experts. Any organisation, group, or institution relevant to the topic can present their perspective. Coordinators ensure that diverse voices are included.

• Deliberation: Discussions occur in small groups and plenary sessions, guided by skilled facilitators, with careful listening and weighing of options.

• Openness: All members of society can submit comments, proposals, or suggestions.

• Sufficient Reflection Time: Assemblies can extend discussions to ensure well-considered decisions.

• Impact and Follow-Up: Recommendations are clear, actionable, and ideally treated as binding within legal limits.

• Transparency: Sessions are live-streamed and recorded; all materials and methodologies are publicly available.

• Visibility: Assemblies are announced publicly, and citizens are informed on how to follow or engage in the process.

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How Citizens’ Assemblies Are Designed

1. Preparation and Design Development
The coordination team defines the topic, plans logistics, identifies stakeholders, and develops ethical and methodological standards. This ensures the process is impartial, transparent, and well-structured.

2. Selection of Participants
Citizens are randomly selected to form a representative mini-public. Demographic criteria ensure diversity, and stipends or support mechanisms remove barriers to participation.

3. Learning and Listening Phase
Participants receive balanced information from experts, stakeholders, and written submissions from society. They can request additional experts, ask questions, and listen to differing perspectives.

4. Deliberation Phase
Facilitated small-group and plenary discussions allow participants to critically reflect, listen, and weigh evidence and policy options.

5. Decision Phase
Participants collaboratively draft recommendations, noting levels of support and nuanced viewpoints. Decisions may be refined through private deliberation to ensure thorough reflection.

6. Transparency, Follow-Up, and Visibility
All sessions and materials are publicly accessible. Coordination teams publish detailed methodology reports and ensure recommendations are communicated to and implemented by authorities whenever possible.

Citizens’ assemblies offer a practical, inclusive, and innovative approach to deepen democracy, empower citizens, and foster policies that reflect the diversity and long-term interests of society.

Composition

Oversight panel The oversight panel can be made up of citizens, representatives of government, right holders (representatives of those whose rights are under threat, such as grassroots campaigns), technical experts in deliberative processes and other stakeholders such as NGOs and corporations. The role of this body is to monitor the whole process of ensuring its compliance with standards.		Experts/stakeholders These are a mixture of experts, stakeholders and rights holders who brief the assembly on their perspective. They are invited by the coordinating group based on criteria set by the advisory board to ensure fair and broad representation of opinion. Assembly members have also input and are asked whether there are specific questions they would like to be answered or particular groups or individuals they would like to hear from. They also have the chance to cross-question panel members at the assembly itself. Contributions from experts, stakeholders and rights-holders can be made in the form of a talk in person, a recording, a written briefing, or they can be live-streamed.
Advisory board The advisory board develops key criteria for the selection of the experts and stakeholders panel. It also ensures, with the help of the oversight panel, that the background material and evidence presented to a citizens’ assembly are balanced. The advisory board may be composed in different ways, for example, in the Irish Citizens’ Assembly the board comprised academics and practitioners across a number of specific fields of interest.		Facilitators team A team of facilitators is appointed by the coordinators. In every session during the citizens’ assembly, a facilitator sits at each table with assembly members. The role of the facilitation team is to ensure that the deliberation is not dominated by a vocal few and that everyone has a chance to speak. This role should be carried out by experienced practitioners who can ensure that the deliberation environment is respectful. The team should be impartial and sufficiently large to adequately support the number of assembly members. The facilitators will not have the opportunity to voice their own opinion.
Citizens Citizens are the heart of deliberative democracy. Citizens’ assemblies must represent all social groups directly affected by the decisions taken in them. In this case, the Swiss population. The members are therefore drawn by lot to represent a representative panel of citizens from this population. Today, a large part of the population is still too often excluded from political decisions. For example, several authors have shown that – based solely on the age factor (one of the few sociological variables, along with education level and social class – or income – , that influence voting inequalities) – young people (18–25 years old) vote less than other age groups (although they participate in a different way), while the 65-74-year-old people vote the most (Maye, 2019; Boughaba, 2014). Therefore, organisers of citizens’ assemblies need to pay attention to the range of factors that would deprive certain groups of people from participating in the democratic process or discourage them from participating in collective discussions in citizens’ assemblies.		Coordinating group A Citizens’ assembly is run by a team of coordinators whose impartiality is essential. Their independence from those funding the process is safeguarded by a series of checks and balances, such as the oversight panel. These coordinators are responsible for conducting the process of random selection and inviting experts, stakeholders and facilitators. This role is normally taken by a professional organisation or a group of such organisations.

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