So those who of us who aren’t fans of citizen assemblies as a decision making process aren’t found too often in the press, but we are out there. Andrew Potter’s recent blog post may hopefully be thing beginning of a better debate about the merits and pitfalls of this process.
I haven’t seen much press assessing the citizen assembly process. If anyone’s seen any articles about the process (not the outcome) please send them along.
[tags]Citizen Assemblies, democratic renewal[/tags]
eaves.ca 
We need these articles, but unfortunately there’s been precious little long-form writing about the citizens’ assembly and its membership that would help us better understand the fundamental differences between it and a Legislative Assembly. I’d love to see a serious treatment of the assembly and a thoughtful article putting the whole process in a political and historical perspective. We also need profiles on the members that probe their thinking. Paging Valpy, Potter, MacGregor, Hebert…
Postscript:
1. Come to think of it, if Doug Saunders had discovered this story in the Netherlands where they recently ran a similar, smaller citizens’ forum on electoral reform, I suspect the slant would have been all glowing admiration for those clever, progressive Europeans.
2. And while thinking of it, where is up-with-citizens left on this? Why can they troop down to Porto Allegre and sing the praises of participatory budgetting — but board the bus to osgoode hall?
We need these articles, but unfortunately there’s been precious little long-form writing about the citizens’ assembly and its membership that would help us better understand the fundamental differences between it and a Legislative Assembly. I’d love to see a serious treatment of the assembly and a thoughtful article putting the whole process in a political and historical perspective. We also need profiles on the members that probe their thinking. Paging Valpy, Potter, MacGregor, Hebert…Postscript: 1. Come to think of it, if Doug Saunders had discovered this story in the Netherlands where they recently ran a similar, smaller citizens’ forum on electoral reform, I suspect the slant would have been all glowing admiration for those clever, progressive Europeans. 2. And while thinking of it, where is up-with-citizens left on this? Why can they troop down to Porto Allegre and sing the praises of participatory budgetting — but board the bus to osgoode hall?