The Citizen Conferences on the Future of Bavaria (Regionale Bürgerkonferenzen “Bürgergutachten 2030: Bayern, deine Zukunft”) involved 8 conferences with 30 citizens in Ansbach, Bamberg, Deggendorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Memmingen, München, Neumarkt and Rhön-Grabfeld.
Problems and Purpose
Background History and Context
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
Participant Recruitment and Selection
For each conference, 500 people aged 16 and above were randomly selected from local population registers and sent an invitation letter. Those who responded were subject to a further selection process (based on sociodemographic criteria).
Methods and Tools Used
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
Participants met over one weekend in Fall 2017 to elaborate policy proposals for the future. These policy proposals (total: 260) were then the subject of a public debate online (December 2017 to February 2018): anyone could participate and submit amendments to these proposals. In March 2018, all participants of the regional conferences met to vote on a final list of proposals, which was submitted to regional political authorities. Topics to be discussed belonged to 10 categories: education, family, work and social security for elderlies, economy and finance, healthcare, migration and integration, security and rule of law, urban and rural planning, energy and environment. Four topics were put to discussion at each of the regional conferences, among which three chosen by the organizers and one chosen by the citizens within the list.
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
Several hundreds of concrete policy proposals were examined by the minipublic and put to vote. Proposals endorsed by participants include: an universal income, physician-assisted suicide, voting rights at 16. Refused proposals include e.g. the creation of a “happiness ministry,” legal ceiling on wages, and additional votes for parents depending on the number of children. The policy proposals were presented to public authorities but it is unclear whether they were taken into account.
Analysis and Lessons Learned
See Also
References
External Links
Notes
This entry is based on the POLITICIZE dataset. More information can be found at the following links:
- Paulis, Emilien; Pilet, Jean-Benoit; Panel, Sophie; Vittori, Davide; Close, Caroline, 2020, "POLITICIZE Dataset", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Z7X6GT, Harvard Dataverse, V1
- Pilet J-B, Paulis E, Panel S.,Vitori D & Close C. 202X The POLITICIZE Dataset: an inventory of Deliberative Mini-Publics (DMPs) in Europe. European Political Science.