Representative deliberative processes (which we also refer to as ‘deliberative processes’ or ‘representative deliberations’) aim to make the process of devising and deciding on policy solutions democratically representative.

This is achieved by creating a representative microcosm (or minipublic) of the populace being governed and giving it the time, information, and structure needed to make decisions wisely. Deliberators are selected from the population through what is known as sortition or a democratic lottery—such that every person has a roughly equal chance of being selected . Thus, far fewer people (from tens to thousands) are involved than are in a referendum or election. Limiting the number of participants makes it possible for conveners to invest more resources per deliberator, so that those chosen can often be compensated for their time (which may be over forty hours for more intense processes) spent grappling with the issue, in facilitated dialogue with each other, experts, and stakeholders.

In a high-quality deliberative-democracy process, sortition (which removes many of the perverse incentives of electoral politics) is coupled with significant investment to ensure that those selected 1) can participate, by providing appropriate compensation, childcare, eldercare, and the like, which helps to reduce self-selection; 2) have sufficient context, by providing briefing information about the decision at hand and access to experts and stakeholders; and 3) can deliberate effectively, through structured discussions and activities that ultimately result in wise decisions.

The democratic legitimacy of this process comes from the representative makeup of the assemblies—far more representative than one finds in a standard elected body. Moreover, the best representative deliberations effectively communicate the “deliberative journey” to the rest of the concerned population through mass media. In this way, the broader public can see people similar to themselves learning about the issues, learning from one another, and coming to a set of conclusions that might initially have been counterintuitive. The best processes also include a mechanism for collecting public feedback and opinions, which are then shared with the deliberators along with the more traditional multistakeholder and expert input. This approach of bringing the entire population along on the deliberative journey (parascaling) is particularly helpful for maintaining democratic legitimacy.

Representative deliberations have already been used by governments and organizations around the world at every level, from small towns and utilities all the way up to the EU and UN-endorsed global pilots. Sometimes called citizen assemblies, citizen juries, citizen panels, or deliberative polls (albeit with significant differences across different approaches), representative deliberations are usually convened by a government to answer a specific question, often one that involves difficult tradeoffs or value dilemmas, for example: “How can we lower climate emissions to 40 percent of our 1990 level?” or “Should we continue building nuclear power plants?” Processes vary significantly in duration (from hours to months); whether they are offline, online, or hybrid; the number of people involved (typically tens to hundreds, but there are examples with thousands); and the structured workflows and facilitation structures that enable the participants to successfully learn about an issue and make wise decisions (process design).

A key ingredient that modern representative deliberations provide, at least in theory, is the ability to provide informed policy responses to any targeted question, with democratic legitimacy, for any population.

Whereas many busy voters may need to cast their ballots on gut instinct, participants in representative deliberations are given the (generally compensated) time and resources to make decisions based on extensive information and deliberation—ideally making the process more robust to AI-augmented advertising and manipulation. A representative deliberation also has an advantage over solely multistakeholder processes, because a representative body can act as a “democratic adjudicator,” thereby democratically weighting the voices of the different stakeholders.

*Note: This is an updated version of the explanation of representative deliberative processes from this essay.

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