De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies (2023) #OpenAccess#Book by M. Reuchamps, J. Vrydagh and Y Welp (eds.).
"Citizens’ Assemblies (CAs) are flourishing around the world. Quite often composed of randomly selected citizens, CAs, arguably, come as a possible answer to contemporary democratic challenges. Democracies worldwide are indeed confronted with a series of disruptive phenomena such as a widespread perception of distrust and growing polarization as well as low performance. Many actors seek to reinvigorate democracy with citizen participation and deliberation. CAs are expected to have the potential to meet this twofold objective."
At present, any idea of strengthening participatory democracy seems like a dream, but we must try to keep the flame of this idea alive. Democracy can only survive if it is participatory. The problem is that (something that is very evident in Spain) politicians usually boycott any kind of initiative of this type.
There is no reason for us to boycott democracy online. Let's build a group. Politicians will take their cures from us. Nobody can stop democracy from happening here and now except us. That is how democracy started in the first place - not by nations giving the example, but by regular people forming small democracies. That\s the way to handle this situation. Think big - act small.
People - everybody seems to have misunderstood the origins of democracy. Democracy came into being by a few people here and there forming democratic societies. They got good at it and were able to build bigger and bigger democratic forms. Eventually whole states and nations emerged out of those tiny efforts.
We don't need democracy somewhere else. We need it here and now, first.
Politicians, courts and all of that have little to do with the preservation of democracy. Make a small democracy of 5 or 10 people and participate. Invite people in for a democratic experience. A hands-on experience with democracy. That is exactly how democracy came into being in the first place. Nations looked at what was done on a local level and modeled their states accordingly.
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