Archive · 17 conversations in Deliberative democracy
Interviews and field notes from people building new forms of democratic practice.
Former Vermont lawmaker Terry Bouricious explains how observing the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly led him to focus on sortition: selecting ordinary citizens by lottery to make public decisions. Drawing on his experience inside elected politics, he argues that elections favor political elites a
Olivier Schulbaum discusses how Platoniq and Goteo connect civic technology, culture, social innovation and democratic experimentation. He examines citizen assemblies through affective legitimacy, enclave deliberation and art-based methods, arguing that those most affected should help set the agenda
Simon Horton is a negotiation expert and author of The End of Conflict. In this episode, he discusses collaborative negotiation, political conflict, peace processes, deliberative democracy, and the potential role of AI in helping societies resolve disputes.
Paolo Spada discusses participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, and the long-term work of scaling democratic innovation. The conversation explores feedback loops, institutional design, political parties, online deliberation, empirical skepticism, and why participatory processes need stronger connections between citizens, public authorities, and wider democratic systems.
Antoine Vergne discusses Missions Publiques, random selection, and the challenge of scaling deliberative decision-making. The conversation explores citizens’ assemblies, global policy, legitimacy, institutional uptake, and how deliberation can move from local experiments toward processes that involve many more people without losing quality.
Paul Zeitz discusses permanent citizens’ assemblies in the United States and the use of technology to scale democratic participation. The conversation explores civic power, institutional reform, participatory infrastructure, and how ongoing citizen bodies could connect public voice with decision-making beyond one-off consultations.
Hélène Landemore discusses deliberative democracy, citizens’ assemblies, and the institutional future of democracy. The conversation examines why representative systems need deeper citizen participation, how randomly selected deliberative bodies can complement elections, and what it would mean to make public reasoning a more regular part of democratic decision-making.
Tiago Peixoto discusses collective action and the difficulty of reforming democratic systems from inside existing institutions. The conversation connects participation, deliberation, political incentives, and institutional change, focusing on how democratic innovations can move beyond isolated experiments and become part of real systems of public decision-making.
Jonathan Moskovic discusses the future of deliberative citizen participation and the practical challenges of making participation influential. The conversation explores citizens’ assemblies, public administration, political buy-in, scaling, and how democratic innovations can avoid becoming symbolic exercises disconnected from actual policy choices.
Sonia Bussu discusses how arts-based practices can bring emotions, imagination, and lived experience into democratic settings. The conversation explores deliberation, participation, facilitation, and the limits of purely rational formats, asking how creative methods can help people engage conflict, uncertainty, and collective decision-making more honestly.
Martín Carcasson discusses the Center for Public Deliberation and the work of overcoming toxic polarization. The conversation explores deliberative practice, local public problems, facilitation, civic capacity, and why democracy needs spaces where communities can move beyond advocacy battles toward shared judgment and problem-solving.
Evelien Nieuwenburg discusses Dembrane ECHO and the challenge of mirroring insights from large group conversations. The conversation explores listening at scale, AI-supported synthesis, deliberation, facilitation, and how public engagement can produce usable collective intelligence without losing the nuance of individual contributions.
