In much of the world, democracy is at a low ebb. Autocrats, authoritarians, and outright fascists appear to be on an inexorable rise, while few politicians seem capable of charting a credible path forward in the face of today’s immense challenges. At such times, even electoral “victories” can feel like mere delays to the inevitable—more a cause for relief than genuine excitement.

Yet just beneath the media radar, another story is taking shape: a story of democratic renewal and reinvention, with citizen participation and deliberation at its heart.

Citizens’ Assemblies may well be the key to unlocking this future—and the momentum behind them is growing across the globe, from Japan to Malawi, from the UN to the EU, and at the municipal level too. In Paris, for example, a standing Citizens’ Council made up of 100 randomly selected citizens now plays a role not unlike that of the House of Lords in the UK Parliament.

Join Jon Alexander, author of Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, in conversation with Claudia Chwalisz, CEO of DemocracyNext and one of the world’s leading advocates and practitioners of deliberative democracy.

Speakers:

Claudia Chwalisz is the Founder and CEO of DemocracyNext and a leading voice in democratic innovation. Her work is rooted in research on populism and the need to restore people’s agency in shaping public decisions. She played a central role in designing the world’s first permanent Citizens’ Assemblies in Paris, Ostbelgien, and Brussels.

From 2018–2022, Claudia led the OECD’s work on innovative citizen participation, producing global standards, tools, and reports including Catching the Deliberative Wave. She also founded the OECD Innovative Citizen Participation Network and advised governments in the Basque Country, Finland, and Lebanon.

An Obama Leader (2023), Claudia sits on advisory boards including the UN Democracy Fund and MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication. She is the author of The Populist Signal and The People’s Verdict, and co-editor of New Routes to Social Justice. Originally from Toronto, Claudia is based in Marseille and speaks English and French.

Jon Alexander is the author of CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, and co-founder of the New Citizenship Project, a book and company that work to shift the dominant story of the individual in society from Consumer to Citizen. Among other plaudits, CITIZENS was listed by McKinsey as one of its Top 5 Recommended Books in its Summer Reading Guide 2022, described as “an underground hit” in the Financial Times, and selected by the World Economic Forum for its CEO Book Club. Jon began his career with a decade in the advertising industry, before shifting his attention to understanding how communications skills might be deployed to invite people into their agency as citizens, instead of just selling stuff to them as consumers.