Designing Deliberative Democracy The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly

Is it possible to advance democracy by empowering ordinary citizens to make key decisions about the design of political institutions and policies? In 2004, the government of British Columbia embarked on a bold democratic experiment: it created an assembly of 160 near-randomly selected citizens to assess and redesign the province's electoral system. The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly represents the first time a citizen body has had the power to reform fundamental political institutions. It was an innovative gamble that has been replicated elsewhere in Canada and in the Netherlands, and is gaining increasing attention in Europe as a democratic alternative for constitution-making and constitutional reform. In the USA, advocates view citizens' assemblies as a means for reforming referendum processes. This book investigates the citizens' assembly in British Columbia to test and refine key propositions of democratic theory and practice.

Introduction: democratic renewal and deliberative democracy Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse; 1. Who should govern who governs? The role of citizens in reforming the electoral system Dennis F. Thompson; 2. Citizen representatives Mark E. Warren; 3. Institutional design and citizen deliberation Hilary Pearse; 4. Agenda setting in deliberative forums: expert influence and citizen autonomy in the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly Amy Lang; 5. Descriptive representation in the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly Michael Rabinder James; 6. Do citizens' assemblies make reasoned choices? André Blais, R. Kenneth Carty and Patrick Fournier; 7. Communicative rationality in the Citizens' Assembly and referendum process R. S. Ratner; 8. Deliberation, information and trust: the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly as agenda setter Fred Cutler, Richard Johnston, R. Kenneth Carty, André Blais and Patrick Fournier; Conclusion: the citizens' assembly model John Ferejohn.

The idea of 'deliberative democracy' suggests that democracies need collective deliberation and reflection as much as they need voting to make public decisions. Contributors to this book assess the merits of the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly, an unprecedented deliberative institution which empowered ordinary citizens to redesign their electoral system.

Mark E. Warren holds the Harold and Dorrie Merilees Chair for the Study of Democracy and is Academic Director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia.
Hilary Pearse is a Ph.D. candidate and Commonwealth Scholar in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia.