In most democracies a citizen's formal power comes down to a vote cast every few years, plus the right to protest, petition and complain. That is a great deal compared with life under a dictator, yet many people feel that decisions are made far away by people who do not listen. This level looks at experiments that give ordinary people a larger and more direct role, and at the reasons to be cautious about them.

A ladder of participation

In 1969 the American planner Sherry Arnstein published an article describing citizen participation as a ladder. At the bottom were forms of manipulation dressed up as consultation. In the middle were public hearings and advisory boards. At the top were real partnership and citizen control. Arnstein warned that much so-called participation is tokenism: people are heard but have no power to decide. Her ladder is still used to ask a blunt question about any consultation: can the people taking part change the outcome?

Participatory budgeting

In 1989 the newly elected city government of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, began inviting residents to neighborhood assemblies to discuss public investment. Participatory budgeting lets residents directly propose and vote on how part of a public budget is spent. Residents ranked priorities such as paving, sewers and clinics, chose delegates and helped set the investment plan for the year. Studies found that spending shifted toward poorer neighborhoods and that water and sewer connections expanded quickly in the years that followed.

The model spread to thousands of places, from small towns in Latin America to Paris and New York. It also met problems. In many cities only a small share of the budget is put to residents, which can make the process symbolic. Organized groups with free time can dominate the meetings. In Porto Alegre itself the process weakened after the party that created it lost power in 2004. Participatory budgeting works best when real money is at stake and the city follows through.

Citizens chosen by lot

Ancient Athens filled most public offices by lottery. Modern versions of the idea are called citizens' assemblies or mini-publics. A few dozen to a few hundred people are invited at random, and members are chosen by stratified lottery so the group mirrors the population by age, gender, region and other traits. They hear from experts and advocates on all sides, deliberate in small groups with trained facilitators and then make recommendations.

Assemblies have tackled abortion, electoral systems and climate policy. Their record shows both promise and limits. In France, the Citizens' Convention for Climate of 2019 and 2020 brought together 150 randomly chosen people, who produced 149 proposals. President Emmanuel Macron had promised to pass their proposals on "without filter", but many of the French convention's proposals were weakened or dropped in the legislation that followed, and some members said they felt used. An assembly is only as strong as the commitment of the officials who receive its advice.

Deliberation online

Digital tools add new possibilities. In Taiwan, a group of civic technologists created a process called vTaiwan in 2014 to help settle disputes over new digital regulation. It used an open-source tool called Pol.is, in which participants write short statements and vote to agree or disagree with others' statements. Pol.is groups participants by their voting patterns and highlights statements that win support across groups. Because there is no reply button, trolling is hard, and the process rewards finding common ground. It was used in 2015 and 2016 in drafting rules for ride-hailing services such as Uber.

The case for caution

Critics raise fair points. Elected officials can be voted out; randomly chosen citizens and online participants cannot be held to account in the same way. Participation takes time, which working parents and people with two jobs often lack. Defenders reply that elected bodies are also unrepresentative in their own ways, and that evidence from many assemblies shows ordinary people can handle complex issues when given time and balanced information. Most supporters see these tools as complements to elected government, not replacements for it.

Worked example: British Columbia redesigns its vote

In 2004 the Canadian province of British Columbia created a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform. Its 160 members, a woman and a man drawn at random from each electoral district plus two Indigenous members, met for most of a year. They studied voting systems from around the world, held public hearings across the province and debated. By a large majority they recommended replacing the existing system with a form of ranked voting in multi-member districts, called BC-STV.

The government had promised to put the recommendation to voters, and it did so in May 2005. The proposal won about 58 percent of the vote and majorities in nearly every district. But the government had set the bar for approval at 60 percent, so it failed. A second referendum in 2009 rejected it more clearly.

Was the assembly a success? Observers praised the quality of its work and the seriousness of its members. Yet it also shows the limits of participation that ends in advice. The citizens did the hard thinking, and the final decision still depended on rules set by politicians and on a wider public that had not taken part in the learning.