Ireland – Citizens’ Assemblies to overcome democratic deadlock
When was the policy enacted?
2012 onwards
Key points
Irish Citizens’ Assemblies successfully engaged citizens, shaped debates on controversial issues, and generated innovative policy proposals, particularly regarding marriage equality and abortion
Challenges faced by Citizens' Assemblies include ensuring representative participation, addressing concerns about legitimacy, providing balanced information, building public trust, achieving scalability and sustainability, and integrating recommendations into existing governance structures.
The transferability of Citizens' Assemblies depends on political circumstances, design, and stakeholder support, while their impact on policy change varies and requires further research.
The success of Citizens' Assemblies in Ireland demonstrates the value of citizen involvement in constitutional reform and the importance of providing a platform for deliberation and discussion
Citizens' Assemblies align with the Sustainable Development Goals, contributing to Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), Goal 5 (Gender Equality), and Goal 11 (Partnerships for the Goals).
Significant unknowns remain regarding the long-term impact of Citizens' Assemblies on public opinion and policy outcomes, as well as the challenges of implementation and operational logistics.
Context
In the 2010’s, Ireland was facing several polarising political issues which were proving difficult to overcome using traditional political mechanisms. One key factor was the need for constitutional reform on sensitive and contentious issues such as marriage equality and abortion, which are delicately interlinked with Ireland’s deep historical ties with the Catholic Church. There was a recognition that, in order to address this, there was a need for increased citizen participation, accountability, and democratic reform in Ireland’s political landscape.
What policy/legislation was passed to address this?
In response to this challenge, Ireland introduced Citizens’ Assemblies. The Irish Citizens’ Assemblies were a series of public deliberative forums that were established to engage citizens in the process of constitutional reform. The assemblies were established as part of a broader effort to reform Ireland’s political system and were intended to provide a forum for citizens to discuss and debate key constitutional issues, such as marriage equality, abortion, and climate change.
Citizen’s assemblies are participatory democratic forums that aim to address challenges in democratic governance by involving a randomly selected group of citizens to deliberate and make decisions on specific issues. They aim to tackle representative deficits by ensuring diverse perspectives, facilitate informed deliberation on complex issues, bridge the gap between citizens and government, enhance the legitimacy of decisions through broad citizen participation, and strengthen public trust in political processes. At their best, Citizens’ assemblies serve as a means to promote inclusive governance, improve the quality of decision-making, and foster citizen engagement in democratic processes.
The drive for Citizens’ Assemblies Ireland began when a group of political scientists founded ‘We the Citizens’, a civil group that promoted deliberative democracy, ran a test-case citizens’ assembly and used it to convince politicians to commit to bringing the public directly into the political process.
The group’s first experiment was the Constitutional Convention in 2012, when 33 politicians and 66 citizens were charged with recommending how to overhaul Ireland’s constitution. This was followed by the Citizens’ Assembly, in which 99 citizens were asked to deliberate on the conundrums of abortion, fixed-term parliaments, referendums, population aging and climate change.
Has this policy been successful?
The Irish Citizens’ Assemblies have been widely regarded as successful in terms of their ability to engage citizens in the process of constitutional reform and to generate innovative policy proposals.
One of the most notable successes of the assemblies was their role in shaping the debate on marriage equality and abortion, two highly controversial issues in Irish society. The assemblies played a key role in generating public support for legalising same-sex marriage and for the repeal of Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws.
In addition, the assemblies have been praised for their ability to promote dialogue and understanding among citizens from diverse backgrounds, and for their ability to generate policy proposals that are both innovative and reflective of the views of citizens.
Although widely considered successful in the Irish case, it is challenging to measure the impact of Citizens’ Assemblies on eventual policy change.
Additionally, these successes sit within a more complex picture in the Irish case. Legalising gay marriage was just one of nine reports the Constitutional Convention delivered to the government. Its other recommendations have had lesser amount of luck. A proposal to lower the voting age to 16 was quashed by the government; removing a constitutional reference to “women’s place in the home” became stuck in legislative quagmire; and a call to reduce the minimum age of presidential candidates was rejected by the public.
On the Citizens’ Assembly, despite the meaningful success on abortion reform, other issues which were examined, including voting reform and climate change, are yet to materialise into legal change.
This shows that although Citizens’ Assemblies have been proven to lead to policy changes, the assumption should not be that it will in every case.
What are the perceived limitations?
Representation: Citizens’ Assemblies rests on the idea that a small group of citizens randomly selected to reflect the age, education level, wealth and gender makeup of the general population does indeed represent the public as a whole. This can be challenging. In the Irish case, the time commitments and costs (travel was covered, child care, for example, was not.) excluded people who work weekends or have care responsibilities, and risks filtering out all but those who are already politically engaged.
Legitimacy: While the assemblies were established by the government, there were concerns that their recommendations would not be taken seriously by politicians or the wider public. It is important to ensure, therefore, that recommendations are taken seriously by policymakers and translated into meaningful action. The potential for decision-makers to selectively implement or disregard recommendations can raise concerns about the actual influence of citizens’ assemblies. There were also concerns that the assemblies were being used as a way to avoid making difficult decisions on controversial issues, rather than as a genuine attempt to engage citizens in the democratic process.
Expertise and Information: Citizens’ assemblies often require participants to understand complex issues and engage with expert information. Providing balanced and accessible information to participants can be a challenge, as it requires presenting diverse perspectives without overwhelming participants or biasing the information.
Public Awareness and Trust: Citizens’ assemblies may face challenges in generating public awareness and understanding of their purpose and processes. Building public trust in the assembly’s legitimacy, ensuring transparency, and effectively communicating the outcomes and impact of the assemblies are vital for their success.
Scalability and Sustainability: Scaling up citizens’ assemblies to address a wide range of issues and incorporating them as regular elements of democratic processes can be complex. Ensuring the sustainability of citizens’ assemblies over the long term and integrating their outcomes into existing governance structures pose significant challenges.
Addressing these challenges requires careful design, effective communication, adequate resources, and ongoing evaluation and refinement of citizens’ assembly processes.
Is this policy relevant to other contexts?
The Citizens’ Assemblies have been widely praised for their innovative and participatory approach to constitutional reform. While the specific format of the assemblies may not be directly transferable to other countries or contexts, there are lessons that can be learned from their experience.
For example, the assemblies demonstrate the value of involving citizens in the process of constitutional reform and the importance of providing a forum for public deliberation and discussion.
However, the political circumstances and design of Citizens’ Assemblies will have a meaningful impact on how well Citizens’ Assemblies can be implemented. In Ireland, for example, a particular set of circumstances helped the assemblies achieve the change they did. It helped that the initiative had cross-party support, that the proceedings were live-streamed and that materials were made available to the public, with rolling news coverage helping broaden out the proceedings into a national debate. It was essential, too, that it was set out in advance what the next steps would be, and that the government had agreed to respond.
In the Irish case, the Citizens’ Assembly also suited politicians, as it meant they could outsource the debate on a controversial issue they knew would have alienated a segment of their voters either way.
Politico argues that, unless they are well designed, a more likely outcome is that political momentum dissipates and the conclusions drafted by citizens’ assemblies fail to have an effect.
For example, Electoral reform proposed by the pioneering 2004 citizens assembly in Canada was not passed by the public. Similarly, the electoral reform recommendations of a 2006 Dutch citizens’ assembly were first ignored, and then rejected by the government. A Citizens’ assembly to solve Brexit run by academics in 2017 backed “a bespoke UK/EU trade deal and a customs union that would allow the UK to conduct its own international trade policy while maintaining a frictionless UK/EU border”, which failed to address many of the key issues facing Brexit at that time. Finally, an Assemble in Northern Ireland was tasked with considering a future of the social care system. They suggested that there be more funding for the care of the elderly and that care workers be better trained and better paid. This recommendation sat within a context of governmental collapse and an intractable lack of funding, meaning that not only was there no one to receive the report, but there would be no feasible way to action the recommendations.
The design of Citizens’ Assemblies has yet to be perfected, and should sit within well established systems and processes. How to make assemblies truly representative and ensure their conclusions truly have impact are perhaps the toughest questions to solve.
However, the Irish example shows the potential benefit of democratic experimentation of this sort, and if done well, is a concept that is potentially transferrable to political contexts globally.
What is not included in the case, and what information do we not currently have?
Both in the Irish context, and regarding Citizens’ Assemblies in general, there are significant unknowns.
Impact: It is unclear how the assemblies impacted public opinion and policy outcomes, particularly on issues such as abortion and marriage equality. There is also a need for further research on the long-term impacts of the assemblies, particularly on the participation and engagement of citizens in the democratic process.
Implementation challenges: More research is needed on the challenges of implementation. There were logistical and organisational challenges involved in their establishment and operation. Further research is needed on these challenges, particularly on issues such as the selection of participants, the provision of resources, and the evaluation of outcomes.
Which SDGs does this policy contribute to?
The Irish Citizens’ Assemblies can be linked to several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including:
Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions – The assemblies contribute to this goal by promoting citizen participation and democratic reform, which are essential components of strong and inclusive institutions.
Goal 5: Gender Equality – The assemblies have been praised for their ability to promote gender equality by providing a platform for women to voice their opinions and contribute to the policy-making process.
Goal 11: Partnerships for the Goals – The assemblies have been successful in building partnerships between citizens and government, which is essential for achieving the SDGs.
