Ende des Jahres 2023 nahm ich an einem Rundtischgespräch im Forum Nachhaltigkeit an der Universität Würzburg über die Rolle der Bürgerräte in der gesellschaftlichen Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit teil. Im Folgenden finden Sie eine Abschrift meines Eröffnungsvortrags.
A large number of national climate assemblies have been set up across Europe to enable citizens to make climate policy recommendations. But do these bodies have any impact? Drawing on new research, John Boswell, Rikki Dean and Graham Smith argue that greater attention should be paid to how these assemblies can be integrated into the world of politics.
Across advanced democracies citizens’ assemblies on climate change – randomly selected, deliberative initiatives of usually between 100-200 people – are increasingly being adopted in the hope that they can address democratic politics current failures on climate policy. My fear is that, as institutional design solutions to what is more a problem of political economy, these climate assemblies are destined to fail. But I share these rough thoughts in the hope that more optimistic readers might convince me that I am wrong.