CCUKDemocracy helping the Summit for Democracy to meaningfully engage citizens globally
September 2022
While we await a response from the new UK Prime Minister to our renewed Proposal for A Citizens’ Convention on UK Democracy we continue to work with partners and our networks to revitalise democracy globally.
In December 2021, many in the field of deliberative democracy were somewhat disappointed with the outcomes of the last Summit for Democracy and started what has become - with your help - a successful campaign for reform.
The Summit had no recognition of or plan for developing democracy’s greatest modern success stories - the recent wave of over 600 successful citizens’ assemblies across the planet. Deliberative democracy was not covered at all in the Cohorts [work streams] of the 2021 Summit. This is widely seen as being a missing part of the agenda. Now, after our serious but respectful campaign, change is underway. Deliberation is being highlighted and its excellent practice and innovation is being enabled to spread rapidly. It is also firing up the leadership and optimism which is needed if we are to win the battle against autocracy.
The campaign centred around two letters [see below] suggesting that citizens engagement should play a key role in revitalising modern democracy. The letters were signed by many leading figures in the field, and they are still open if you would like to add your name. We offer our thanks to all those listed in the letters who signed and supported this successful aspiration to be more ambitious and pro-active.
The first letter was to President Biden who had inspired the creation of the Summit and the other was to Uzra Zeya the responsible Under Secretary in the United States Government.
We asked for deliberative democracy, especially citizens’ assemblies, to be taken seriously as a part of real all year round activity between the formal Summits for Democracy.
We set out the case for strengthening the work in individual nations by their having access to democratic infrastructure across the planet. This should include a global What Works evidence centre free and available to all, a global Citizens’ Assembly in permanent session to consider issues around democracy at the request of the Summit, and a global “Marshall Plan” to energise and focus activity not least in those new democracies threatened by Autocracy.
Our most important “ask” was for the Summit to dedicate a new work stream, a Cohort for Deliberative Democracy and Citizens’ Assemblies and for it to set and achieve an agreed global agenda.
We were delighted to receive an encouraging response from Under Secretary Zeya and, working in close cooperation with the US State Department officials, we have created the Cohort to bring proposals on deliberation to life.
Things are moving along quickly now. A Cohort requires 2 political leads. We have approached Ireland with its innovative and pioneering track record on deliberation, and the European Commission with its vast experience in the field. This was demonstrated again recently by its Future of Europe report and the launch of the Competence centre on participatory and deliberative democracy. Ireland has accepted political leadership and the European Commission will officially reply soon. This, with the State Department, can constitute a formidable triumvirate for good.
To drive this forward a core group of Cohort NGO sponsors including the Citizens’ Convention on UK Democracy has been considering a draft agenda for the Cohort under the sponsorship of the newDemocracy foundation [Australia] led by Iain Walker. Other founding sponsors include: Prof Jane Suiter of Dublin City University (Ireland); Dawn Nakagawa of the Berggruen Institute [US]; Yves Dejaeghere of FIDE (Europe - Brussels); Claudia Chwalisz of DemocracyNext (International); Dominik Hierlemann of Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany); Linn Davis of Healthy Democracy (US); Matt Leighninger of the National Conference on Citizenship (US); and Peter MacLeod of MASS LBP (Canada). We need many others to join this work.
We are at the beginning of the Cohort’s development and news on further progress is being circulated as it happens. As an early statement of intent, the Cohort is discussing working jointly with the Eastern European Group of Democracy R&D and other partners on a package for the new democracies under threat.
In conclusion, democracy now has the processes and technology to enable Citizens to be fully engaged with their democracy. We have a new organisation to help in this task. Setting up the Cohort is the beginning not the end. The heavy responsibility upon the new Cohort is to demonstrate its ambition and be the engine to help make deliberation happen globally.
Many friends and colleagues of CCUKDemocracy [and given the chance, citizens themselves] are ready and eager to make a constructive contribution to grab this precious opportunity to make our democracy fitter for purpose.
We don’t have much time.
Graham Allen - Convenor CCUKDemocracy
grahamwilliamallen@outlook.com
To Under Secretary Zeya - the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, US State Department
Dear Under Secretary Zeya,
We are US and international practitioners, experts, academics and others in the field of deliberative democracy and citizens’ assemblies.
We know that you are as concerned as we are that our collective efforts to defend democracy against autocracy now need to go up a gear. Recent events in many countries, including the USA, are adding urgency to this. That is why the broad global span in the Open Letter to the President [see below] strongly welcome his leadership in creating and following up with specific actions on the Summit for Democracy.
There are three strategic points we are keen to convey to you:
1. Creating a meaningful role for everyday people is the central democratic reform needed today.
We start with the importance of citizen engagement and its meaningful inclusion as one of the pillars of democratic societies. There is a broad public sentiment that elected representatives are part of a special elite and ‘not like the rest of us’. This is now seen very acutely in the US, but is a shared problem across every free democracy.
Once citizens see no reasonable prospect of being represented (it’s an insiders’ game) or being heard (that’s for wealthy donors) we cease to see ourselves in our halls of governments. Decisions are then done ‘to’ us, and it’s easy for people to gravitate to fanciful arguments at the periphery of society.
Political parties around the world have endured decades of falling membership which makes the remaining people more and more likely to represent the polar extremes rather than a real cross-section of society. As this is unlikely to change, the solution lies in creating other opportunities whereby the regular citizens can be meaningfully and substantively heard today.
The criminal jury is a good example of a trusted decision-making mechanism. If judges find juries complementary, then done in the right way so can politicians.
Major projects utilising this approach are working. The OECD and UN Democracy Fund are championing this approach. It warrants being put on any agenda for those concerned with the erosion of public trust.
1. Ireland is the story participants need to hear.
Abortion laws is a topic which is politically difficult everywhere, and potentially about to get more difficult in the United States. Consider that Ireland (with an above average connection to religion) and with a Constitutional prohibition was able to reform this area using this approach.
Why did it work? Instead of politician leading the public discourse, it was 100 everyday people we can relate to who were given the task of seeing what, if any, changes they thought were necessary. Now, the public found themselves hearing from people who looked like them, had jobs like them, and had views like them – and when those people learn things which caused them to alter their views the wider community feel like they were learning with them rather than being berated into submission as we often feel with Punch and Judy politics and activist campaigns.
Hearing from experts, members of the legislature – from all parts of the spectrum – was a transformational experience for participants. Many of the citizens proposals passed through the legislature and ultimately the Irish people’s referendum passed 67 % -33%.
1. It is working and spreading in almost every OECD country.
It is fairly easy to agree on the problem. Regardless of our home country, most of us see our democracy overrun with an unholy mess of money, special interests, favours and ultimately poor decisions which aren’t seen to be helping people’s standard of living. Elections have always been combative, but the dog is now getting off the leash: while polarisation helps with the short term goal of winning and retaining office, the growing use of the approach is revealing a staggering side effect of that division living on well after the election result is known. What works to win elections has downsides, not least undermining citizens engagement and faith in their own democracy.
The missing piece from the first summit was how we tackle the lack of citizens’ engagement. This can be put right by integrating it from the outset into the preparations beginning for second summit. Looking carefully at the Citizens’ Assembly method will reveal how it earns public trust and why a random sample of everyday people practising “democracy in good conditions” are transparently and obviously immune to the negative pressures. This is why Presidents, Prime Ministers and Governors around the world are commissioning citizens’ assembly projects -600 so far-so that the legislatures may concurrently solve a problem and gain an understanding of the broader usefulness of the approach.
The evidence base is strong. Yet its use in America is the lowest across the OECD. Summit preparations can be the first step in letting US legislators know that this option exists.
The US has taken an important first step (NYT article here ) demonstrating the promise of citizens’ engagement. We can amplify that story and spread the potential.
We can facilitate access to the leading expertise from our willing global network designing and operating Citizens’ Assemblies and citizens’ engagement. If helpful we could explore any ideas you wish to discuss or test.
The problem is an urgent one, so the tested innovation of Citizens’ Assemblies offers the prospect of equally rapid solutions being able to emerge from a well prepared and hardworking Summit.
Please let us know how best we can take this forward perhaps by a short initial meeting with you and your team,
Best Wishes,
Nicolas Berggruen, Founder of the Berggruen Institute, co-author of Renovation Democracy, USA
Nathan Gardels, Co-Founder of the Berggruen Institute, co-author of Renovating Democracy, USA
Dawn Nakagawa, Executive Vice President of the Berggruen Institute, Director of the Future of Democracy program, USA
James Fishkin, Director, Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy ,Stanford, USA
David Schecter, Coordinator, Democracy R&D network, San Francisco, USA
Mahmud Farooque, Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology (ECAST) Network, Washington, DC, USA
Anthony Jones, Vice President Gorbachev Foundation of North America, Boston, USA
Ed Chadd, Convenor of the 2021 Washington State Climate Assembly, USA
Linn Davis and the Directors of Healthy Democracy, USA
Michael Genovese, President of Global Policy Institute at LMU, Los Angeles, USA
Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science, Yale University, USA
Roger Berkowitz, Founder and Academic Director, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, USA
Wendy Willis, Executive Director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, USA
Michael Neblo, Director of IDEA, lead at Connecting to Congress, USA
International Supporters
Kevin Keith, Chair of the UK Open Government Network
Graham Allen, Convenor of the Citizens’ Convention on UK Democracy
Kathy Jones, Director newDemocracy Australia
David Van Reybrouck, managing director G1000, author “Against Elections: The Case for Democracy”, Belgium
David Farrell, Co-convenor of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly Project
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Founder newDemocracy Australia
Grace Lockrobin, Founder and Managing Director of Thinking Space, UK
Ceri Davies, Director of the Centre for Deliberative Research, NatCen, UK
Lord Wallace of Saltaire, UK
Andrew Beale, 2021 Heywood Prize winner, “Integration of Citizen’s Assemblies as a formal part of UK governing structures”
Ben Rich, Chief Executive, Radix UK
Baroness Ruth Lister of Burtersett
Robert Blackburn, Professor of Constitutional Law, King’s College London
Iain Walker, Executive Director newDemocracy Australia
Baroness Frances D’Souza, former Speaker of the House of Lords
Tom Brake, Former Deputy Leader House of Commons, Director Unlock Democracy
Jane Suiter, Co-convenor of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly Project
Areeq Chowdhury, Founder of WebRoots Democracy
Bobby Duffy, Director of The Policy Institute, King’s College London
Sarah Castell, Chief Executive, Involve UK
Graham Smith, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster
Matt Hawkins, Co-Director, Compassion in Politics UK
Laura Chinchilla, Former President of Costa Rica
Cristina Manzano, Director of EsGlobal, Spain
Jessica Feldman, Global Communications Faculty, American University in Paris, France
Judith Symonds, Paris School of International Affairs, Science Po and Common Ground, France
Lex Paulson, Executive Director, Mohammed VI University, Morocco
Lord Young of Cookham, UK
Paul Natorp, Co-founder and Chairperson of Sager der Samler, Denmark
Hans-Liudger Dienel, Berlin University of Technology and Participation, Germany
Henning Banthien, Chairman of Management, IFOK, Germany
Others continue to join
Open letter to President Joe Biden on the Summit for Democracy
This updated open letter to the President is our proposal for practical global action throughout 2022 ahead of the second Summit for Democracy.
January 2022
Dear Mr President,
Your brilliant vision for regular Summits on Democracy now needs to be complemented by clear outcomes. Officials need to come up in a timely way with some creative yet practical ideas to make it sing.
Here are some of those ideas – just three simple ones – from some of the best people in the field.
The opportunity of the 2022 Summit for Democracy should not be missed. It will be to democracy what COP 26 was to the environment. Yet strangely, democracy’s superpower – the rich wave of examples of effective Citizens’ Assemblies sweeping across the globe – has yet to find a place on the Summit agenda. We must give the means and not merely wish the ends.
It is vital that our democracies evolve and take up these innovative means to resist the creeping encroachment of autocracy. There are a number of immediate things that can be begun now and that can bear fruit before the December 2022 Summit.
First, in preparation for the Summit, officials can craft now a rhetorical declaration of support for the principles of deliberative democracy and thoughtful citizens’ engagement.
Second, officials working on the 2022 Summit should be tasked to create the beginnings of a global What Works Centre for Citizens’ Assemblies to share an evidence base, promote best practise and advocate for effective Citizens’ Assemblies, building on the excellent work of the UN, OECD and many others in the field.
Third, the pre-Summit work can delve further into the practicalities of making available to all democracies the means, methods and outcomes of citizens’ engagement. The Summit preparation should include convening its own standing, independent International Citizens’ Assembly to be in session through the year. It would carefully deliberate on ideas to be sent to the regular annual Summits on Democracy. This will reveal to democrats globally that almost any policy issue can be helpfully addressed by citizens provided that trusted and effective mechanisms of deliberation and citizens’ engagement are in place.
We all have to be self-aware and understand that we have not been as assiduous as is necessary to make sure our democracies are constantly improving and adjusting to the challenges of the modern world. These Summits and the permanent institutions above are not about huddling together but about reaching out. They are just the beginning of a continuing education process for all of those of us – including our global democratic elites – who care about the future of democracy.
Meaningful citizens’ engagement is not a “nice to have”. Our ambition must be that it becomes as much a part of each of our democratic cultures as are the ballot box and the occasional right to vote.
Those in the field – many additional to those mentioned below – are able, experienced and hungry to help you make a start on this.
Signatories:
Graham Allen, Convenor of the Citizens’ Convention on UK Democracy
Prof David Farrell, Co-convenor of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly Project
Kathy Jones, Director newDemocracy Australia
David Van Reybrouck, managing director G1000, author “Against Elections: The Case for Democracy”, Belgium
David Schecter, Coordinator, Democracy R&D network, USA
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Founder newDemocracy Australia
Mahmud Farooque, Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology (ECAST) Network, Washington, DC, USA
Grace Lockrobin, Founder and Managing Director of Thinking Space
Prof Michael Genovese, President of Global Policy Institute at LMU, Los Angeles, USA
Ceri Davies, Director of the Centre for Deliberative Research, NatCen
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Andrew Beale, 2021 Heywood Prize winner, “Integration of Citizen’s Assemblies as a formal part of UK governing structures”
Anthony Jones, Vice President Gorbachev Foundation of North America
Ben Rich, Chief Executive, Radix UK
Baroness Ruth Lister of Burtersett
Robert Blackburn, Professor of Constitutional Law, King’s College London, UK
Ed Chadd, Convenor of the 2021 Washington State Climate Assembly
Iain Walker, Executive Director newDemocracy Australia
Baroness Frances D’Souza, former Speaker of the House of Lords
Tom Brake, Former Deputy Leader House of Commons, Director Unlock Democracy
Areeq Chowdhury, Founder of WebRoots Democracy
Bobby Duffy, Director of The Policy Institute, King’s College London
Sarah Castell, CEO, Involve
Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science, Yale University
Prof James Fishkin, Director, Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy
Prof Graham Smith, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster
Matt Hawkins, Co-Director, Compassion in Politics
Linn Davis and the Directors of Healthy Democracy, USA
Lord Young of Cookham, UK
Paul Natorp, Co-founder and Chairperson of Sager der Samler, Denmark
Hans-Liudger Dienel, Berlin University of Technology and Participation, Germany
Henning Banthien, Chairman of Management, IFOK, Germany