Can an Algorithm Help Solve Political Paralysis?

Cities across France are using citizens’ assemblies, where a diverse group of citizens study important issues and make policy recommendations. In Paris, 150 citizens spent nine months working on the climate convention, which resulted in 149 recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. President Macron pledged more funding and accepted all but three of the proposals. The convention also showed how citizens’ assemblies improve community cohesion and reduce polarization. Ireland, the UK, and Belgium have also successfully used citizens' assemblies to address important social issues.

Citizens' assemblies, where a randomly selected representative sample of people work together to make decisions and find policy solutions to social issues, is an effective approach to decision-making that bridges polarization. It also minimizes the influence of special interests in decision making. America In One Room gathered 500 people in Texas to address topics such as immigration and healthcare, among others, and it showed that people tend to find common ground after deliberative discussions. Citizens’ assemblies have successfully informed policy decisions in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France.

Grassroots movements made up of ordinary citizens can go a long way in creating change. This article details several initiatives across Ohio that were led by citizens using a combination of lobbying, education, persistence, knowledge of government practices, and organization. Some things that were achieved using these methods are wage reimbursements and increased bus access.

In order to cut carbon emissions in France, President Emmanuel Macron created an assembly of 150 randomly selected citizens. The citizens "convention on climate" met and deliberated for months before releasing 149 proposals on how the government should address climate change. Although only 10 made it into law without being altered, and 36 others were included form, the final legislation was one of the most comprehensive passed in the history of the country. The recommendations also garnered conversations and inspired the creation of other assemblies.

In the city of Leeds, England, a group of randomly selected demographically representative citizens came together to solve the climate crisis. This group of twenty-one strangers formed the Leeds Climate Citizens' Jury, which is a smaller version of the better-known Citizen's Assembly. Over the course of several weeks, the members of the assembly or jury learn about and discuss how to tackle a certain political problem, like climate change. Similar assemblies have formed in Ireland, Australia, and Poland to tackle political problems like abortion and nuclear storage.

In France, a digital transformation is taking place. To lay the groundwork, the country passed the Digital Republic Act in 2016, which mandated local and central government to publish documents and public data, a significant step toward transparency and open data. Government taskforce Etalab, which has attracted top tech talent, built on that foundation by launching data.gouv.fr, a portal that hosts over 40,000 public datasets, and other organizations have coordinated collaborative open data projects between cities.

Low voter turnouts, populists offering half-truths, corporate interests, and the blurring of facts in the media are signs that democracy around the world is in turmoil. Internationally, citizens have assembled different programs and initiatives that arm ordinary people with information about policy and their elected officials, as well as distinctive ways to reform the electoral system.

Following the passage of the Climate Change Act, the United Kingdom created a Climate Change Committee to oversee the country’s efforts to reach net-zero emissions. The committee acts as a watchdog by analyzing ways to decarbonize the economy and publishing information that can be leveraged by policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and private sector industries. Its model has since been replicated around the world.

In response to the yellow vest movement, France decided to experiment with "open democracy" by convening the French Citizens Convention on Climate, which asked 150 randomly-selected citizens to consider ways for the country to curb greenhouse gas emissions. With the help of more than 100 experts, the convention developed 149 recommendations that were used as the basis for France's most ambitious climate legislation proposal to date.

California residents passed Proposition 11, a redistricting reform ballot initiative, in 2008 and in 2010, voters strengthened that reform by passing a bill to allow an independent commission to redraw state and congressional lines. Fourteen people, who were selected from 30,000 applicants, spent a year holding public hearings across the state to make informed decisions on how to fairly redraw district maps. As a result, more than a dozen Congressional incumbents lost their seats, which was not an intentional outcome but rather what resulted from decisions made based on the public testimony they heard.