Democracy Rising 2: Nine Short Arguments for Deliberative Democracy

Our belief and focus in this series is that the dysfunction at the top of our system is both a cause and a consequence of what’s broken at the bottom, and that the power of deliberative democracy is fundamental to fixing that.

Climate Change Politics-as-Usual can’t Fix the Climate Crisis. Maybe it’s Time to Try a Citizens’ Assembly

This climate emergency requires a courageous response from our political leaders. A citizens’ assembly – given sufficient time, resources and expert assistance – offers one means to solve the problem of taking difficult, long-term decisions in a political system governed by short-term rules.

Ticking a Box is no Longer an Option

How come we can still stick with a procedure from the late eighteenth century, elections, believing they are synonymous with democracy?  It’s a very, very recent procedure and it was originally not even conceived as a tool for democracy.  Elections were introduced to stop democracy, rather than to make democracy possible.  If innovation is truly important, let us rethink the key procedure we use to let people speak.  Ticking a box is no longer an option.