Problems and Purpose

Historically, policymaking has lacked rigorous, citizen-led deliberation capable of producing detailed, widely endorsed policy recommendations. In response, Trade Justice Movement (TJM), Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and MutualGain organised ‘the world’s first Citizens’ Assembly on Trade and Climate’ [p.5, 1]. The coalition sought to bring ‘Green Trade Strategy’ more into the political discourse of the UK and determine ‘what kind of policies should be prioritised’; simultaneously, focusing on the publics opinion on this issue [p.5, 1]. The Assembly prioritised assisting participants in navigating the complex environment of trade policy and ultimately sought to answer: ‘How should the UK Government respond to climate change through its trade policies?’ [p.5, 1].

Background History and Context

General landscape

Distress concerning the climate crisis has pervaded political discourse for decades. The UK government’s Climate Change Committee deemed progress ‘worryingly slow’ [2] and its High Court ruled that the nation had not met legal minimum standards, breaching the UK Climate Change Act [3]. Contextually, ‘[a]round 20–30% of global CO2 emissions are associated with international trade’, highlighting its significant role in driving climate change [4]. Moreover, the UK’s position of power has often been mentioned as a motivation for the nation to take responsibility and lead the way –– particularly through assisting developing countries –– in the global transition towards a more climate-friendly world [5].

Historic policy and governmental positions

Historically, the UK’s trade policies were shaped by its membership in the European Union between 1973-2020. During this time, the UK operated within the EU's Common Commercial Policy and participated in EU-wide trade agreements that often embedded environmental standards [6]. Participation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme linked the UK’s trade policies directly to climate objectives via carbon pricing [7]. Brexit marked a turning point, forcing the UK to establish an independent trade framework while maintaining its climate obligations, including its legally binding net-zero emissions target under the Climate Change Act 2008 [8]. The creation of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) in 2021 represented one effort to ensure continuity in climate governance, though differences with the EU system raised concerns about regulatory divergence and trade friction [9]. Yet, real progress has stalled due to ongoing intraparty disagreements influenced by lobbying [10], anti-intellectual populist scepticism [11], and international disputes over responsibilities [12]. Consequently, action through alternative means, such as enhanced public involvement, has been floated as a more effective means of tackling climate change.

Concrete Public Involvement

Public involvement in trade and climate policymaking has historically been limited in the UK, but recent years have seen a shift toward greater citizen engagement. The Climate Assembly UK in 2020, convened by Parliament, brought together randomly selected citizens to deliberate on pathways to net-zero and reflected a growing interest in participatory policymaking [13].

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

The Citizens’ Assembly on Trade and Climate was the result of a collaborative effort between the Trade Justice Movement, Queen Mary University of London, and MutualGain. These three partners worked jointly to design, fund, and execute the Assembly, ensuring that the research process, deliberative sessions, and analysis of outcomes were all coherently integrated and professionally managed. Each organisation provided complementary expertise, ensuring the Assembly’s effective delivery and credibility. This coordinated approach was instrumental in delivering a structured and inclusive deliberative process, as emphasised in the project’s report. Importantly, elements of this case study are supplemented by content gathered from an interview I conducted with the director of Mutual Gain Susan Ritchie [14].

The Assembly was made possible through the financial support of several key institutions, including Queen Mary University of London’s Impact Fund, UNISON, the Waterloo Foundation, and the Samworth Foundation. This funding enabled the project to engage a diverse cross-section of the public and to facilitate informed deliberation.

Participant Recruitment and Selection

The Citizens’ Assembly on Trade and Climate undertook a rigorous recruitment process aimed at ensuring inclusivity and demographic representation. The project team collaborated with the Sortition Foundation to implement a gold-standard two-stage random selection process, distributing 21,000 invitations nationwide. This method involves first drawing a large random sample and then stratifying it by key demographics. Such an employment of a two-stage random-selection (sortition) procedure is widely described by deliberative-practice guides as the ‘gold standard’ for citizens assemblies [15]. This process was designed not only to reflect the national population in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, education, occupation, and region, but also to account for differing levels of concern about climate change and interest in trade policy. From 336 expressions of interest, a final cohort of 70 was selected using stratified sampling, and 59 participants completed the full Assembly after accounting for personal withdrawals. An inspection of ‘Annex 1: the composition of the assembly’ shows that the Assembly closely mirrored its recruitment targets, successfully encompassing nearly all intended demographic categories [p.33, 1].

To support broad participation, each participant received £500 compensation for their time. Additionally, the team made substantial efforts to address technological and accessibility concerns: Chromebooks were distributed to those without devices, and participants were offered one-to-one digital support and training. The Assembly sessions were initially held online, with later sessions conducted in-person. For those facing health-related or logistical barriers, hybrid participation options were made available, ensuring that all selected voices could be heard and contribute meaningfully.

Methods and Tools Used

The Assembly’s design blended rigorous governance with internationally recognised methodological standards. An independent 16-member Advisory Board and a dedicated Evidence Committee steered the process, refining the research questions, vetting materials for balance, and safeguarding neutrality.

Drawing on the OECD’s eleven principles for deliberative processes and Involve’s guidance for UK citizens’ assemblies, the team distilled ten concrete criteria –– clear purpose, sufficient time, representativeness, inclusivity, independence, transparency, balanced information, structured deliberation, collective decision-making, and skilled facilitation, embedding them in every stage of the project [1]. Neutral framing was maintained through a single overarching question, while the aforementioned gold-standard, two-stage sortition procedure ensured a demographically and attitudinally representative mini-public.

Operationally, the project blended digital and in-person formats to balance flexibility with depth. During the online learning phase, participants explored key trade and climate concepts through 29 expert-curated videos, live Q&A sessions, and, where needed, received Chromebooks and one-to-one tech support. AI text-analysis software surfaced points of convergence and divergence, feeding structured discussion guides, which helped focus deliberations on areas of common ground while productively addressing contested issues.

In-person deliberations were facilitated by MutualGain’s neutral moderators, supported by scribes working on shared Miro boards and physical pin-boards to ensure all data was gathered properly. Interestingly, the Assembly also drew on aspects from another Assembly facilitated by MutualGain in Newham First Citizens' Assembly on Climate Change. Contextually in Newham, as part of the Assembly participants and facilitators assumed roles to simulate local carbon-reduction negotiations [p.2, 16]. For the Trade & Climate Assembly, this practice evolved into a WTO-style negotiation game. The engaging role-play scenario immersed participants in real-world trade-off decisions; small-group representatives then toured other tables to merge and refine proposals before plenary votes. Facilitators role-played policy advisers, modelling how to weigh evidence and negotiate red lines. The familiar, game-like format lowered barriers for those new to trade jargon while keeping discussions grounded in real-world constraints [p.11, 14].

This blend of technology, expert input, and carefully scaffolded dialogue enabled final participants to move from learning to consensus, producing an Assembly Statement and policy recommendations that met an 80 % super-majority threshold.

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

The Citizens’ Assembly on Trade and Climate convened in June 2024 and marked a significant milestone in public deliberation by becoming the world’s first citizens’ Assembly to explicitly focus on the intersection of trade and climate policy. The Assembly brought together 59 demographically and attitudinally representative members of the UK public to consider a central research question:

“How should the UK Government respond to climate change through its trade policies?” .

The Assembly took place over 35 hours, split across nine sessions, with a few ‘pre-reading’ homework tasks to supplement some learning phase content. The process unfolded chronologically in three main phases: preparation and recruitment, the learning phase, and the deliberation and decision-making phase (recommendations setting).

Preparation and Recruitment

Recruitment was a two-stage randomised process, 21,000 invitations were issued nationwide, 336 people expressed interest, after 70 were invited, a total of 59 participated.

The Assembly was curated to be digitally inclusive, providing Chromebooks to participants without access to digital devices and provided technical support, ensuring equitable access to information. Additionally, a £500 honorarium was provided to each participant to compensate for their time and engagement, and the final phase was held in person.

The learning phase

The learning phase consisted of seven structured online learning sessions, each lasting three hours, over a ten-day period. During this learning phase, participants engaged with 21 hours of expert presentations over an online Zoom call, supported by breakout discussions and Q&A segments. The structure was designed to gradually increase complexity, and the research question was reiterated at the start of each session to maintain focus. Learning modules focused explicitly on four key trade policy tools:

1. Tariffs
2. Standards
3. Subsidies
4. Public procurement

Crucially, the first seven sessions can be understood as:

1. Session one provided an opportunity for Assembly members to get to know each other, share recent news articles on trade and climate change, and ask questions of clarification and comprehension about terminology in the welcome pack and preread materials.
2. Session two, three and four introduced notions around climate change and international trade through the first interactions with experts, providing deep insight.
3. Session five went deeper into ‘[a]t the border’ measures within trade policy.
4. Session six and seven discussed trade policy tools, with session 6 having a particular focus on subsidies and session seven on public procurement.

During these sessions, evidence was provided to the main group with time for exploration of facts and clarifications before going off into small group discussions in parallel breakout rooms. Facilitators guided small-group discussions, while scribes summarised discussions live via Miro for participant review. Discussions were processed using AI-assisted thematic analysis to track evolving views, and to inspect as a resource during the final recommendation setting process. The project team also worked with evidence-givers to ensure videos were accessible and concise.

The learning phase aimed to be a collaborative, iterative journey in which participants continually tested and refined their understanding together. For instance, once they had analysed the learning phase, insights were summarised collectively, reviewed, and then reinforced through interactive role-play. This focus ensured participants gained a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms through which trade policy can influence climate outcomes, whilst remaining engaged.

Deliberative phase

The final two sessions constituted the deliberative phase, sometimes referred to as the collective decision-making process. In this stage, participants sharpened their ideas and developed comprehensive policy recommendations. A standout feature was an aforementioned role-play exercise modelled on World Trade Organization negotiations, during which members tabled, amended, and consolidated proposals. The process culminated in a jointly authored Assembly Statement accompanied by a suite of recommendations. Each item made it into the final document only after passing a structured consensus process and a formal vote that required at least 80 % support.

Caveat in deliberative phase

Following the regular deliberative phase participants also chose to create a position statement. Drafting a position statement had not been on the agenda, but participants wanted to clarify their shared perspective before presenting recommendations. They therefore elected one representative from each group to form a small drafting team, which produced a statement to preface the final report. Determined to ensure their diverse voices are heard they have pledged to stay involved and keep advocating for their views.

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

In evaluating the success of the citizen assembly, it is important to distinguish between outcomes and impacts. Outcomes refer to the immediate, tangible results that can be more readily measured, whereas impacts encompass the broader, longer-term effects that may take time to unfold and are often less directly observable.

Outcomes

A key outcome was successfully convening the first-ever Citizens' Assembly specifically addressing trade and climate policy. Another outcome is practically the participation of the 59 individuals who completed the Assembly and took part in the decision-making process.

Additionally, the Assembly culminated in the production of a detailed Assembly Statement and a set of actionable policy recommendations, reflecting the collective stance on how UK trade policy should respond to the climate crisis. This statement, along with the accompanying policy proposals, was then presented to the full Assembly for discussion and refinement. The Assembly recommended measures such as carbon border taxes, subsidies for green technologies, low-carbon public procurement, and increased support for developing countries.

Consequently, the recommendations reflect arguably most important outcome of the Assembly: a democratically informed and publicly endorsed set of proposals aimed at shaping how the UK integrates climate objectives into its trade strategy.

Effects

The Assembly’s effects have extended well beyond its own walls. By confronting a complex policy arena, it generated a set of recommendations robust enough for politicians, civil-service policy teams and civil-society networks to use as a concrete reference point for ‘[where] public appetite’ lies, and where it does not [p.7, 14]. Trade-justice campaigners and researchers at Queen Mary University now cite the findings in meetings with ministers, while members of the oversight group have integrated them into their professional networks; one commissioner even draws on them in work at the World Trade Organization [p.7, 14]. A series of policy briefs is currently in development, each grounded in the Assembly’s output.

Politically, the project gained real traction when its report was launched in Parliament with cross-party backing and an explicit commitment to carry the work forward [p.7, 14]. That reception, combined with the continuing involvement of participants and a parallel effort to draft wider deliberation standards, shows the Assembly is doing more than sparking conversation: it is shaping policy agendas and institutional practice in tangible ways.

Overall, the Assembly has demonstrated that an informed citizens Assembly can turn a technically dense, politically sensitive issue into a set of actionable ideas that have already begun to filter into policy debates and institutional practice

Analysis and Lessons Learned

In the forthcoming section, I will undertake a critical evaluation of the Citizens’ Assembly on Trade and Climate by applying Smith’s six-dimension analytical framework of democratic goods; namely, inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgement, transparency, efficiency, and transferability [17]. Indeed, I aim to determine the extent to which the Assembly realised Smith’s articulation of each of these democratic goods. As much of the essay, this section is supplemented by content gathered from an interview with the director of MutualGain, Susan Ritchie.

Inclusiveness

Smith’s inclusiveness criterion examines whether democratic processes truly represent the target population, in theory and practice. Inclusiveness, under Smith’s criteria fundamentally hedges upon a few key notions.

Firstly, one must define the demos, i.e. ‘who counts as a citizen’, and subsequently, are these individuals being included [p.21, 17]. The Citizens’ Assembly on Trade and Climate, like most citizens’ assemblies, sought to mirror the demographic makeup of the wider population it aimed to represent, achieving proportional demographic representation. The composition does roughly align with their target, with Ritchie stating that no groups were missing [p.2, 14]. Here, the employment of a ‘gold standard’ procedure (see Section 4.0), crucially maximised demographic representativeness and, by extension, legitimacy. This approach accords with Smith’s stipulation that any democratic innovation must be judged partly on the rigour of its recruitment rules and their capacity to equalise the chances of participation across the population.

On the other hand, wider literature reminds us that even an impeccably stratified and well-supported mini-public cannot fully escape structural limits. Jacquet’s non-participation study warns that even generous inducements cannot erase deeper scepticism and self-exclusion, leaving the Assembly vulnerable to unseen voices [18]. Furthermore, Spada and Piexoto identify four chronic hurdles: small sample size, sampling-frame biases, low acceptance rates, and within-group effects [19], potentially blunting any strong claim that a few dozen citizens can stand in for millions. The Trade & Climate Assembly mitigated some of these issues with generous supports and a respectable completion rate, but it remains vulnerable to the generic critique that a miniature body, however well chosen, offers only a proxy for the national demos.

Smith also asks evaluators to look beyond formal rules to the practical inducements that determine whether people from diverse social groups actually say yes. Participants received Chromebooks and individual digital support to bridge ‘digital divide’ that often skews who can engage in political deliberation [20]. Moreover, in cases where participants faced health-related or logistical barriers, hybrid participation options were made available [p.10, 1], further ensuring material and practical support so that participation is feasible for all selected citizens. The aforementioned stipend and sustained technical assistance meant that participants with limited resources, or limited digital literacy, could contribute on an equal footing, helping to maintain what Smith calls equality of voice throughout the process.

In addition to these material supports, the previously mentioned role-play scenario functioned as a significant facilitator of inclusiveness. By immersing participants in simulated WTO-style negotiations and assigning them the roles of various trading blocs, the exercise lowered the cognitive and technical barriers often associated with specialist policy discussions. This aligns with findings from Urcuqui-Bustamante et al. (2022) [21], who demonstrate that role-play simulations promote collaborative learning, empathy, and trust, particularly by helping participants understand complex topics and appreciate perspectives beyond their own

Considered Judgement

Unfortunately, the online format, beneficial for inclusivity, posed potential trade-offs with considered judgement. Under Smith’s considered judgement criterion, the Assembly’s effectiveness is evaluated based on the depth, empathy, and quality of participant deliberation. Thus, considered judgement can be broadly understood as an engagement in in-depth problem solving through fundamentally empathetic means.

Engagement in online deliberative scenarios intuitively comes into question, as digital environments often struggle to replicate the immediacy and relational dynamics of face-to-face interaction. Online discussions risk fragmented dialogue, limited non-verbal cues, and participant distraction. These concerns are supported by empirical studies such as Strandberg and Grönlund’s Online Deliberation and Its Outcome [22], which found that online formats tend to inhibit meaningful dialogue and sustained concentration.

However, Ritchie noted the online phase remained engaging despite inherent limitations [p.3, 14]. Accounting for the acknowledged loss of ‘[personal] relationships’ between participants and organisers [p.3, 14], there seemed to be success in engaging participants online. Interestingly, empirical evidence on online deliberation effectiveness is in actuality mixed. A paper like Standberg’s and Grönlund’s [22] typically cites technical issues as a massive inhibitor of discussion, something not mentioned at all as being an issue in this Assembly. Moreover, scholars such as Fishkin [23], Manosevitch [24] and Price [25] all have concluded that organising successful citizen deliberations online is a very feasible task. In our example there were significant measures taken to try establish a deliberative, empathetic process. Ritchie clarifies that focusing on methods of how to make it engaging is paramount, with the example of roleplay being outlined an important activity, one which inspired a lot of deliberation [p.11, 14]. Organisers also made sure to factor reading packages into the sessions all the time, even having the dedicated pre-reading session [p.11, 14]. These successes are arguably evidenced by the returning participants after a year later for free. Here, the trade-off seems somewhat exaggerated.

Yet, confusion on complex trade issues persisted among some participants [p.22, 1]. Following the learning phase, many participants still struggled to understand complex trade issues. Ritchie noted, for example, that some ‘didn’t know about the critical-mineral issue,’ a topic central to modern geopolitics [p.25, 14]. While including citizens with limited prior knowledge enhanced inclusiveness, it also risked limiting deliberative depth. At the same time ‘stark[ly] oppos[ing[ political views,’ ‘different social class[es],’ and ‘different experiences,’ [p.10, 14] sometimes provoked ‘massive massive [conflict]’ [p.9, 14]. Together these dynamics somewhat hindered Smith’s ‘enlarged mentality,’ limiting full consideration of opposing views [ [p.25, 17].

Despite the evident trade-offs, it must be acknowledged that the Assembly ultimately produced a coherent and well-considered set of recommendations. This outcome demonstrates the resilience of citizens’ assemblies in delivering thoughtful policy solutions despite structural limitations.

Popular Control

While acknowledging some deliberative successes in the Assembly, Smith’s democratic good of popular control demands for more than just concepts, it demands for people driven results. In Smith’s framework, popular control gauges the extent to which ordinary citizens, not elected officials or experts, exercise real influence over the political agenda, the deliberative process, and, ideally, the final decision [p.22, 17].

A clear limitation instantly arises in popular control in the sheer sprawl and volatility of government itself. As Ritchie notes, ‘recommendations don’t always sit with one particular department … every policy is going to have consequences on others … [and then an] election’ can also change the landscape again [p.9, 14]. Indeed, government responsibilities are fragmented across multiple departments and devolved bodies. Here, friction often exists between departments due to competing political priorities, as evidenced in Moseley et al [26]. This issue is compounded by the often broad language of citizens’ assembly recommendations and their delivery across multiple departments. The clear constraint is that ‘terminology… needs to be … translated (in the figurative sense) to a non-specialist audience’ [27] or audiences with differing priorities. For example, a recommendation to remove tariffs on ‘goods important to the green transition’ [p.29, 1] might prompt DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) to prioritise sustainable agricultural imports, while DESNZ (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) may interpret it narrowly as supporting renewable energy technologies. Even if interpretations align initially, political turnover, such as an election, can rapidly shift government priorities, rendering the assembly’s framework obsolete. Thus, while assemblies can articulate public preferences, their capacity to shape cross-cutting or politically sensitive policy remains limited by the volatility of political cycles and institutional fragmentation.

More broadly, the good of popular control fundamentally demands four criteria to be met, the Assembly succeeding in some and failing in others. Firstly, for Smith, genuine popular control begins with citizens co-defining the problem itself, as if agenda-setting is left to powerful actors, deliberation risks devolving into a guided exercise that merely ratifies their preferred initiatives. Inviting Assembly participants to shape the initial framing therefore safeguards the process from elite pre-selection and keeps decision-making anchored in the public’s own priorities. However, participants did not influence initial framing; there ‘was an assumption that climate change is happening and that the purpose of the Assembly was to what extent or what policy tools, if any, policy tools should be used … to help with that’ [p.4, 14].

Secondly, the citizens’ ‘option analysis’ was somewhat impeded due to the predetermined scope of information they were relayed. Interestingly, Ritchie commented ‘if you looked at something like EVs or. Other sort of trade food policy or those sorts of things you could end up with a set of recommendations that focus solely on electric vehicles or something like that’ [p.5, 14]. This comment suggests the notion that discussion and deliberation, and hence likely recommendations, were often dictated by the information and resources provided by organisers, rather than of the participants pure own analysis. However, the very nature of any citizens’ Assembly inevitably confronts this dilemma: despite giving members Chromebooks, internet access, and Q-and-A sessions with experts, practical limits on time and cognitive load mean that participants still depend heavily on the curated evidence supplied by organisers. While such curation is necessary to keep a complex topic manageable, it also narrows the horizon of option analysis, subtly guiding deliberation toward the issues, data, and trade-offs pre-selected by the project team.

Third, on Smith’s metric of ‘option selection’ [p.23, 17], the Assembly excelled: delegates themselves decided which proposals progressed; recommendations required a substantial 80% super-majority for approval, underscoring robust participant control

Finally, with respect to implementation, early signs are encouraging. Even though some measures still lack a direct pathway to enactment, the process has already conveyed a clear, evidence-based picture of public priorities to policymakers; several recommendations are feeding into parliamentary debates and departmental policy briefs, demonstrating that participants’ preferences are beginning to shape the policy agenda.

Whilst such developments are most certainly impressive, in the end, the Assembly’s most concrete contribution was diagnostic. Participants realised that existing climate commitments carry little enforceable weight, developed a ‘healthy cynicism’ about their own leverage, and –– anticipating that their proposals might be sidelined — added a pre-emptive statement to document their position [p.27, 14]. This statement provided procedural clarity, pre-emptively refuting claims that policy inertia results from ambiguous public preferences. This reflects Lewis et al.’s (2023) [28] view that, even when assemblies lack direct policy influence, one of their core values lies in generating an evidence base for lobbying central governments.

Transparency

Under Smith’s framework any democratic innovation, such as this citizens Assembly, needs to be open to ‘scrutin[y]’ [p.25, 17]. Here, the ‘realisation of publicity is crucial... [to see outputs as] legitimate and trustworthy’ [17]. More specifically, Smith outlines two aspects of transparency: clarity for participants about the process, and public scrutiny of proceedings and outcomes.

On the first count, the Trade & Climate Assembly fares reasonably well. Participants were briefed on the scope, timetable, and voting rules; Ritchie suggests that they understood the conditions of participation, including the fact that final recommendations would be advisory rather than binding [p.4, 14].

However, external transparency suffered due to minimal public visibility. Limited communication resources resulted in minimal media coverage and low public awareness [p.13, 14]. The trusted initiative Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) has emphasised that effective communication and wide outreach is integral if climate assemblies are to influence public attitudes and build support for their recommendation [29], citing particular assemblies in Austria, France and Scotland as great examples [30]. Such a choice arguably reflects a sacrifice of transparency and popular control for the democratic goods of inclusion, considered judgement and efficiency: limited funds were channelled into facilitation, participant support, and expert evidence rather than into a communications campaign which would have given the project.

In Smith’s terms, the result is a weaker score on transparency, but one arguably justified by the higher-quality deliberation those savings enabled. Session videos and transcripts were publicly available online, ensuring detailed procedural transparency. Only a handful of transcript lines were anonymised as “#X” because of poor audio [p.22, 1]: an error unlikely to distort the record, given how rarely it occurred. Overall, transparency was sufficient, though not robust due to limited public outreach. Pragmatically, the openness achieved is reasonable, even if Smith’s tougher standards would rate it only as adequate.

Efficiency

Smith’s efficiency criterion evaluates ‘the demands (participations) places on citizens and other institutions and whether these are worth bearing individually and socially’ [p.26, 17]. In practicality, Smith’s efficiency criterion weighs the cost-benefit trade-off of participation — asking whether the time, money, and administrative effort demanded of citizens and institutions are justified by the value of the Assembly’s outcomes.

On this metric the Assembly performs particularly well. Ritchie notes, the £500 honorarium was ‘important at the time’ because participants ‘had no idea if it was going to be a waste of time,’ yet by the closing weekend ‘they said the money wasn’t as important… they’d learned so much,’ and a year later 20 of them returned ‘for free’ to take advocacy training [p.15, 14]. Funders, she added, felt the exercise ‘performed better than they thought it would’ and ‘loved’ the quality of the outputs, judging the citizens assembly a better buy than a consultancy report of comparable cost [p.17, 14].

Seemingly, ‘the acceptable costs associated with the particular innovation’ [p.26, 17], were not high in this scenario, and there was an overall sense of money and time well spent by organisers and participants respectively.

Transferability

Transferability assesses whether a democratic innovation can be replicated effectively in new contexts. Citizens’ assemblies already operate in countless countries, from Ireland’s abortion and climate forums to Brazil’s Belo Horizonte urban-budget juries, suggesting the model is broadly portable.

One of the aspects which matter most for a democratic innovation to function in a particular scenario is political permission and logistical capacity. Ritchie implies that Assemblies most definitely suit democratic governance, though an authoritarian regime that wants to get a better sense of what’s going to land could still use one in an advisory role [p.18-9, 14]. A further contextual filter is thematic salience: a country where trade or climate ranks low on the public agenda may struggle to justify the expense or attract institutional sponsorship, whereas states already debating carbon tariffs or supply-chain security can leverage an Assembly as timely evidence. In practice, the main barriers are therefore less about regime type and more about whether leaders are willing to cede agenda space, fund neutral facilitation, and respect outcomes.

Where governments meet those criteria, the format’s core elements (random selection, structured learning, facilitated deliberation, super-majority voting) can be replicated with modest adaptation to local culture and legal norms. Political will and resources remain the gating factors, but aspects of the Citizens’ Assembly on Trade and Climate, along with other past events, shows the model itself is eminently transferable.

References

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Notes

LLM Declaration

I declare that I have used ChatGPT and Study Fetch to support the process of improving the clarity and conciseness of written content in this work. All intellectual contributions, final decisions regarding content inclusion, and critical analyses remain entirely my own. These AI tools were employed solely as editorial aids under my direct supervision and to help locate relevant articles and journal entries that supported my learning and understanding of the topic.

Signed,

Tomas Pixa

For example,

I inputted, this paragraph into an LLM.

Operationally, the project combined digital and in-person tools to give participants both flexibility and depth. During the online learning phase –– which introduced participants to key concepts around trade and climate –– members without laptops received Chromebooks and one-to-one tech support, watched 29 expert-curated short films, and questioned live evidence-givers

Asked LLM to make the paragraph flow better and be more concise

Received this

The project blended digital and in-person formats to balance flexibility with depth. In the online learning phase, participants explored key trade and climate concepts through 29 expert-curated videos, live Q&A sessions, and, where needed, received Chromebooks and one-to-one tech support.

Subsequently,

Wrote out

Operationally, the project blended digital and in-person formats to balance flexibility with depth. During the online learning phase, participants explored key trade and climate concepts through 29 expert-curated videos, live Q&A sessions, and, where needed, received Chromebooks and one-to-one tech support.