About DemocracyNext
DemocracyNext is an international foundation working to accelerate the spread of high quality, empowered, and permanent citizens’ assemblies.
We believe in a more just, joyful, and collaborative future, where everyone has meaningful power to shape their societies.
We work to shift who has power and how we take decisions in government and in institutions of daily life like workplaces, schools, and museums.
Citizens’ assemblies are brave spaces for creative problem solving, designed for exercising our collective intelligence, engaging with complexity, and finding common ground. At their heart are three key ideas – sortition (selecting decision makers by lottery), deliberation (collectively weighing evidence for shared decisions), and rotation (taking turns representing, and being represented by others).
Our hypothesis is that if people have greater agency in decision making, the ripple effects contribute to a thriving, resilient society of active citizens, where people have stronger trust in one another, a meaningful sense of belonging, and are less polarised. Citizens’ assemblies lead to more legitimate and informed decisions, policies, and resource allocations.
Grounded in rigorous research and extensive practice in the field, DemNext’s work to collaboratively grow and support the global deliberative democracy movement entails:
Creating infrastructure that scales the number of people with assembly know-how;
Building institutions that shift power;
Experimenting with innovations that push the boundaries of the field;
Creative storytelling that inspires people to learn and to act; and
Investments that enable systemic change.
Find out more at our website and follow us on LinkedIn.
Why subscribe?
In a context of democratic crisis, our team is exploring new ideas for another democratic future and working to bring them to life. By researching, implementing and reporting on new forms of democratic institutions, such as permanent citizens' assemblies, where representation passes through sortition (selection by lottery), we enable you to explore how your institution can adopt new forms of democratic process.
Our newsletter has updates about our research, projects, and high-level events. We occasionally publish long reads and interviews. We also like to share the most exciting advances in the field of democratic innovation - our work is part of a wider ecosystem of change makers.
