About us

Buergerrat.de is a website of the non-profit organisation ’Mehr Demokratie". It serves to document and support sortition-based citizen participation in Germany and beyond.

As a rule, citizens' assemblies are organised on behalf of governments, ministries, parliaments or local councils. These usually commission associated companies or individual facilitators with the organisation and implementation of the mini-publics. Rarely are public institutions, civil society organisations or companies behind citizens' assemblies as clients and recipients of the results.

Mehr Demokratie itself is only organisationally involved in citizens' assemblies in a few cases. For example, the association helped organise the federal Citizens‘ Assembly on Democracy and the Citizens’ Assembly on Germany's Role in the World and provided advice to the Citizens' Assembly on Climate Change. In 2023, the German Bundestag commissioned Mehr Demokratie, together with three associated companies, to organise the Citizens' Assembly “Nutrition in Transition”. Mehr Demokratie also launched the deliberative democracy projects LOSLAND.and "Climate meets municipality".

However, Mehr Demokratie is not otherwise responsible for the topics, procedures and results of citizens' assemblies. We see our task in spreading the idea of democracy by sortition in Germany. We advise those who want to make citizens' assemblies a reality at federal, state and local level.