"Co-construction" in deliberative democracy: lessons from the French Citizens' Convention for Climate

Giraudet, Louis-Gaëtan, Apouey, Bénédicte, Arab, Hazem, Baeckelandt, Simon, Bégout, Philippe, Berghmans, Nicolas, Blanc, Nathalie, Boulin, Jean-Yves, Buge, Eric, Courant, Dimitri, Dahan, Amy, Fabre, Adrien, Fourniau, Jean-Michel, Gaborit, Maxime, Granchamp, Laurence, Guillemot, Hélène, Jeanpierre, Laurent, Landemore, Hélène, Laslier, Jean-François, Macé, Antonin, Mellier, Claire, Mounier, Sylvain, Pénigaud, Théophile, Póvoas, Ana, Rafidinarivo, Christiane, Reber, Bernard, Rozencwajg, Romane, Stamenkovic, Philippe, Tilikete, Selma and Tournus, Solène 2022. "Co-construction" in deliberative democracy: lessons from the French Citizens' Convention for Climate. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9 (1) , 207. 10.1057/s41599-022-01212-6

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Abstract

Launched in 2019, the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate (CCC) tasked 150 randomly chosen citizens with proposing fair and effective measures to fight climate change. This was to be fulfilled through an “innovative co-construction procedure”, involving some unspecified external input alongside that from the citizens. Did inputs from the steering bodies undermine the citizens’ accountability for the output? Did co-construction help the output resonate with the general public, as is expected from a citizens’ assembly? To answer these questions, we build on our unique experience in observing the CCC proceedings and documenting them with qualitative and quantitative data. We find that the steering bodies’ input, albeit significant, did not impair the citizens’ agency, creativity, and freedom of choice. While succeeding in creating consensus among the citizens who were involved, this co-constructive approach, however, failed to generate significant support among the broader public. These results call for a strengthening of the commitment structure that determines how follow-up on the proposals from a citizens’ assembly should be conducted.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Additional Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	2662-9992
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 June 2022
Date of Acceptance:	23 May 2022
Last Modified:	14 May 2023 04:24
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/150742

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