What is the future of democracy?
Send us your ideas. Plus, our trip to London, Stephen Fry, and an upcoming U.S. West Coast tour!
👋 Hello friends and readers!
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🇬🇧 This week, Claudia Chwalisz, Ieva Česnulaitytė, and James MacDonald-Nelson were in London for a series of events and meetings with local authorities, gallery directors, designers, and community members. First stop was Tuesday at the London Office of Technology and Innovation community power event, where we presented on institutionalising Citizens’ Assemblies — what they are, how they work, and how they might become a permanent part of the city’s democratic architecture for Londoners to make collective decisions about their city.
Could London one day have a permanent Citizens’ Assembly? We hope so.
📰 Speaking of the Britain, don’t miss this excellent new article in the Guardian on Citizens’ Assemblies, which asks, are they the future of democracy? (We certainly believe so.)
Claudia is quoted:
“As the ancient Greeks and others recognized, elections are a way of constituting an oligarchy,” she says. “When the French and American revolutions led to the establishment of the institutions that today we call democratic, the word ‘democracy’ was never used – the intent was for them to be oligarchic, concentrating power in the hands of the few.”
👀 We also thought this is the right moment to share a wonderful clip from legendary British actor and comedian Stephen Fry’s show QI. In it, Fry makes a quick and compelling case for selecting citizens by lottery.
Perhaps the most amusing part are the faces of his guests as they begin to wrap their heads around it, though one clearly agrees, “It’s a brilliant idea!”
🇪🇺 Some more exciting news: Ieva has been selected as one of eight Future Europe Fellows at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna! The Fellowship is for 10 months, beginning in September. Her focus will be on exploring the role of deliberative democracy in resisting autocracy in Europe.
If you’d like to connect about how deliberation can address authoritarianism in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond, Ieva would love to chat.
🇺🇸 Don’t miss this great interview, of particular interest to our American readers, with DemNext Strategic Advisor and Yale scholar Hélène Landemore. She answered some questions from Washington Monthly about the potential of Citizens’ Assemblies in the United States:
GS: What is open democracy? Why is it preferable to our system in the United States? HL: Open democracy is a new model of democracy that puts a legislative body made of citizens drawn by lots rather than professional politicians at the center of the system. [Currently] the people we elect are a skewed sample of the population that, ironically, is not representative in a descriptive sense. It doesn’t add up to good lawmaking, and it skews the representation of people’s problems and what their solutions should be. Unlike representative democracy, open democracy does not enclose power to those capable of winning elections and raising money.
☀️ Finally, we wanted to give a heads up about some upcoming events and travels. Over the coming weeks, Claudia will embark on a tour of the U.S. West Coast for a series of meetings as well as public talks, which are listed below:
10-12 February: Foo Camp, San Francisco
15 February: Can Citizens’ Assemblies Help Solve San Francisco’s Biggest Problems?, Public event, San Francisco
3 March: The Next Democratic Paradigm, Claudia Chwalisz in conversation with Marcus Harrison Green, Town Hall Seattle
7-8 March: Jury Duty for Democracy in our Offline & Online Worlds, Information Quality Summit, Bend, Oregon (info coming soon!)
9 March: A Citizens’ Assembly for LA meeting with organisers, stakeholders, and volunteers, Public Democracy LA and Berggruen Institute
10-11 March: Democratizing Finance Workshop, Berggruen Institute, LA
Feel free to get in touch if you’re nearby and wish to collaborate in some way.
As always, we thank you for your support and interest in the building the next, more just and resilient paradigm of democracy.