Governments around the world are experimenting with giving community members more power to direct policy decisions. From randomly selected deliberative citizen assemblies, to participatory budgeting, to new online tools and more effective public consultation. This short list of short videos features inspiring examples of innovative approaches and tools for practical people-powered government.
Deliberative Democracy & Sortition (Random Selection, Citizen Lottery)
Why Have a Citizen’s Assembly?
An activist view on the potential for a randomly selected panel of citizens to be a more trusted authority than parliament.
2:20 min. Created by Extinction Rebellion, UK
How to restore trust in politics
A professional journalistic look into the potential of citizens’ assemblies to build a new relationship between the public and the politicians.
8:09 min. Created by The Economist
Deliberative Engagement – What is it?
An introduction to the six key principles of deliberative democracy (with randomly selected citizens) in comparison to “standard” public consultation processes.
3:13 min. Created by MosaicLab, Australia
The French Citizen’s Convention for the Climate
150 randomly selected citizens convened by the French government to give direction on fighting climate change.
1:28 min. France 24 news clip
Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland
Over 100 randomly selected citizens meet for over seven weekends to give recommendations on the future of the country to parliament.
3:00 min. Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland
Deliberative Polling “America in One Room”
An experiment that demonstrates how deliberative processes can overcome polarized politics.
3:35 min. CNN news clip
Climate Assembly UK
The House of Commons convened over 100 random people representing the UK to deliberate for six weekends to give recommendations on reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050
2:30 min. Involve Foundation
Melbourne’s People’s Panel
How the 10 year financial plan for the city was based on effective public engagement and recommendations from a panel of 46 random citizens.
3:14 min. City of Melbourne
Reinventing Civic Education with Lotteries
An example of how student government could be run on random selection.
3:05 min. Democracy in Practice
E-democracy (Online Public Participation)
Can Taiwan Reboot Democracy?
The true story of how the government has formally adopted online participatory democracy to make new laws.
7:38 min. BBC news segment
Participatory Budgeting
An introduction to the real world process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget.
4:13 min. The Participatory Budgeting Project
Tools
Feedback Frames for Group Decision-Making in Meetings
CONSUL Software for Public Participation in Madrid
ThoughtExchange – Mass Consensus Gathering
Ethelo Survey Software for Smart Online Public Consultation
See more in our long list of videos on participatory democracy.
