Dear all,

Next Tuesday, 28 April, we will be hosting a workshop as part of the Democratic Innovations Lab at TUM Think Tank on “Citizens’ Assemblies: Practices, Visions, and Possible Futures”. Please find below a description and the program, I am also attaching the poster with the complete program and room details. Everyone is kindly invited to participate!

If you plan to attend the workshop, or parts of it, please sign up via email at theory@hfp.tum.de.

All best,

Manon

Citizens’ Assemblies: Practices, Visions, and Possible Futures

Tuesday, 28 April 2026

Workshop of the Democratic Innovations Lab, TUM Think Tank

Munich School of Politics and Public Policy | Richard-Wagner-Str. 1, 80333 Munich

Citizens’ assemblies are one of today’s most exciting democratic innovations: randomly selected citizens come together to deliberate on major political issues and generate policy recommendations. Such formats offer several advantages: they demonstrate trust in citizens’ political judgment and promote inclusive deliberation, political learning processes, and the public expression of previously neglected perspectives. But they have also faced criticism, for example for their often limited political influence, too much focus on consensus-oriented solutions, and the fact that it is usually the better-off and better-educated who tend to accept invitations to participate. The workshop takes stock of current uses of citizens’ assemblies and analyzes both their advantages and their shortcomings. It elaborates ways in which citizens’ assemblies can be further developed to enhance their ability to deepen citizen participation and strengthen democratic resilience.

Program

11.30am            Welcome and Introduction

11.45am            Graham Smith (London): Good governance or revolutionary confrontation with the carbon state? The many faces of citizens’ assemblies

1.00pm               Lunch Break

2.00pm               Azucena Morán (Potsdam): A citizens’ assembly is... insights from anti-colonial theories of deliberation

3.00pm               Break

3.15pm               Melisa Ross (Bremen): Global Citizen Deliberation and the limits of deliberative practice

4.15pm               Break

4.30pm               Manon Westphal (Munich): Deliberative mini-publics or tribunates? Diversifying citizens’ assembly models

5.30pm               Final Discussion

5.45pm               End of the Workshop