Citizen’s Assemblies, Impartiality, & Influence: The French Climate Convention

• In Event: Democratic Innovations against Misinformation

Abstract

The legitimacy of a deliberative mini-public is not quantitative and aggregative, unlike elections or votes, but qualitative. In accordance with the theories of deliberative democracy, it is the quality of the procedures and the respect of democratic principles that matter. A “good deliberation” is aiming to fight mis- and disinformation by guarantying fair and factual debates. But do mini-public experiments really follow these theoretical imperatives? Are impartiality, fairness and equity really practiced in contemporary deliberative processes? This might be more difficult for citizens’ assemblies since they are the longest and most ambitious type of deliberative mini-publics, spanning over months or even years and invested with official mandates from political decision-making institutions. Furthermore, respecting impartiality could be even harder for climate assemblies, as climate policies are an “open problem” and not a binary or clear cut one.
In order to tackle this important issue, we conduct a qualitative analysis of the French Citizen’s Convention for Climate (CCC), based on a complete ethnographic direct observation of the whole process and dozens of in-depth semi-directive interviews with key actors (citizens, organizers, facilitators, experts, stakeholders). We will try to draw pragmatic and normative lessons from the procedural successes and failures of the CCC. Can we say, as the CCC co-chair did, that “neutrality is impossible”? But then what are a biased deliberation and a skewed civic engagement worth? Can they be considered legitimate? Are mis- and disinformation possible in citizens’ assemblies, even if these processes are supposed to be the ultimate example of sound and objective debates?
The objective of this paper is to identify criteria of legitimacy and procedural impartiality for the deliberation with the help of a fine ethnography of the Citizens’ Convention for Climate. We propose a framework for distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate interactions and influences within citizens’ assemblies. On the one hand, three criteria are highlighted and operationalized: pluralism, transparency, and fairness. On the other hand, we construct a typology of six “modes of influences” in a mini-public: procedural, classic, semi-formal, discursive, informal, and external.

Authors

• Dimitri Courant, Harvard University

• Simon Baeckelandt, Université de Lille