Citizens' Assembly Network

The Citizens' Assembly Network is a association of people who are committed to making greater use of randomly selected mini-publics at municipal level or are involved in this for other reasons. The aim of the network is a constant exchange on open questions about citizens' assemblies, for example with regard to the search for topics, the sortition process, implementation, costs and the realisation of citizens' assembly recommendations.

The network is made up of

  • Citizens' initiatives that are committed to citizens' assemblies
  • Administrative staff who deal with citizens' assemblies
  • Politicians who want to promote citizens' assemblies
  • Citizens' assembly organisers (employees of implementation companies, facilitators, etc.)
  • Academics who conduct research on citizens' assemblies
  • Citizens' assembly participants
  • Other interested people

Online network meetings are held every four weeks, to which all interested parties are cordially invited. The events are recorded and made permanently available to all network members, as are documents from citizens' assembly practice, e.g. administrative templates for organising citizens' assemblies, sample applications, etc.

The network is aimed at interested parties from all German-speaking countries.

The Citizens' Assembly Network emerged from the networking of local citizens' assembly initiatives, an exchange forum for citizens' initiatives that are committed to implement mini-publics in their city or municipality. This network had already existed since January 2021. In November 2023 it was decided to expand it to include further citizens' assembly actors and to extend it to the entire German-speaking region.

Between network meetings, members exchange information via a mailing list and a group in the Signal messenger. The mailing list is used to regularly send out Citizens' Assembly news, invitations and event recordings. The Signal group also provides regular information on the procedures and practices of municipal citizens' assemblies.

Network communication