Three unprecedented large-scale democratic experiments have
recently taken place. Citizen assemblies on electoral reform were
conducted in British Columbia, the Netherlands, and Ontario. Groups
of randomly selected ordinary citizens were asked to independently
design the next electoral system. In each case, the participants
spent almost an entire year learning about electoral systems,
consulting the public, deliberating, debating, and ultimately
deciding what specific institution should be adopted. When Citizens
Decide uses these unique cases to examine claims about citizens'
capacity for democratic deliberation and active engagement in
policy-making. It offers empirical insight into numerous debates
and provides answers to a series of key questions: 1) Are ordinary
citizens able to decide about a complex issue? Are their decisions
reasonable? 2) Who takes part in such proceedings? Are they
dominated by people dissatisfied by the status quo? 3) Do some
citizens play a more prominent role than others? Are decisions
driven by the most vocal or most informed members? 4) Did the
participants decide by themselves? Were they influenced by staff,
political parties, interest groups, or the public hearings? 5) Does
participation in a deliberative process foster citizenship? Did
participants become more trusting, tolerant, open-minded,
civic-minded, interested in politics, and active in politics? 6)
How do the other political actors react? Can the electorate accept
policy proposals made by a group of ordinary citizens? The analyses
rely upon various types of evidence about both the inner workings
of the assemblies and the reactions toward them outside: multi-wave
panel surveys of assembly members, content analysis of newspaper
coverage, and public opinion survey data. The lessons drawn from
this research are relevant to those interested in political
participation, public opinion, deliberation, public policy, and
democracy. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers,
and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary
government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are
characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong
methodological rigour. The series is published in association with
the European Consortium for Political Research. For more
information visit: www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr. The Comparative Politics
Series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics
and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth
Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British
Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political
Science, Philipps University, Marburg.
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