Papers and analysis on democratic systems, civic infrastructure, and the case for deliberative governance. Written for practitioners, advocates, and curious citizens.
Misinformation spreads because it travels to people who can’t ask it a question. A deliberation room is its worst environment: participants get direct access to experts, push back in real time, and have to persuade the people sitting next to them. Organizations fighting misinformation at the millions-of-users scale are in a nearly impossible battle. At the scale of 150 lottery-selected citizens, the same problem becomes tractable.
James Fishkin at Stanford has run Deliberative Polls across 28+ countries since the 1990s — in every case, when everyday citizens spend time with balanced information and expert testimony, their views shift measurably toward positions closer to real-world evidence and data. The gap between what people initially believe and what the evidence actually shows shrinks substantially — not because anyone told them what to think, but because they had time to ask questions and push back.
One well-studied example: France’s Citizens’ Convention on Climate (2020). 150 lottery-selected French citizens spent nine months hearing from climate scientists, economists, industry representatives, and union leaders. Their 149 proposals were notable for spanning the political spectrum — market-based mechanisms alongside regulation, worker transition support alongside emissions targets, community approaches alongside national mandates. The participants arrived with varied politics and the proposals reflected it: something no lobbied legislature had managed to produce.
Ireland's Citizens' Assembly on abortion rights (2016–2018) is the most studied case of citizen satisfaction with a deliberative process. At the end, nearly all members said they would recommend the experience to others — including members who arrived with strong opinions that were challenged by the process. The final recommendations, developed over 18 months, were described by participants as genuinely their own, not something handed to them.
This pattern holds across many countries. Germany's Citizens' Council on Democracy (2021), Australia's Citizens' Parliament (2009), and Iceland's National Forum (Þjóðfundur, 2010) — which brought together 1,000 lottery-selected citizens to set national priorities after the financial crisis — all report high satisfaction and strong perceived legitimacy among participants.
Research consistently finds that when people deliberate together — across political, economic, and demographic differences — polarization within the group decreases. People arrive primed for conflict and leave describing the experience as one of genuine learning. This doesn't mean they agree; it means the disagreements become more substantive and less tribal.
On legitimacy: political scientist Hélène Landemore and others have found that lottery-selected assemblies are often viewed as more legitimate than elected representatives on contentious issues, particularly where voters distrust elected officials' motives. The mechanism is obvious: a participant was chosen by lot, not by donors and party gatekeepers, and has no electoral incentive to reach a particular conclusion.
SurveyUSA Study #25078, commissioned by OfByFor (joinofbyfor.us) — national polling conducted January 6–8, 2020 on how different framings of citizen assembly governance land across political lines. Foundational data for cross-partisan messaging: which language builds broad support, which triggers partisan resistance, and where unexpected common ground exists. The research behind Adam Cronkright's "four horsemen" framing advice (retire "deliberative," "mini-public," "random," "sortition") and the case for edgy, transformation-focused language over neutral reform-speak.
View the PDF →Our analysis of state ballot initiative laws suggests that fifteen states offer viable routes to amending their state constitution to implement empowered civic assembly systems. We prioritize among them by weighing three factors: the ballot initiative process for constitutional amendments, existing civic engagement with deliberative practice, and the national perception of the state's partisan lean. The analysis helped support our selection of Colorado as our primary pilot for 2028, a cycle in which we envision additional campaigns in Missouri, Ohio, and Oregon.
See the analysis →A practical legal guide to executing a statewide democratic reform initiative in Colorado: the 24-month Title Board timeline, four election law firms with political-alignment profiles, signature-gathering cost estimates ($1.5–3M+), and campaign finance compliance under Colorado's TRACER system. Includes a direct comparison of statutory vs. constitutional initiative tradeoffs — the central strategic choice for durability vs. ease of passage.
See the framework →The United States spends $27.6 billion per cycle on an "Outrage Industrial Complex" — a for-profit ecosystem that relies on division to generate revenue and votes. This analysis breaks down where that money goes, what deliberative democracy actually costs by comparison, and what redirecting just 1% of the political market ($276M) could fund: 138 National Assemblies, 920 Citizen Juries, or 30,000 grassroots digital deliberation processes.
See the paper →Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Vienna each govern cities of one million or more using councils of 55–100 members — with Vienna's full democratic infrastructure spanning over 1,200 directly elected representatives at city and district levels. This paper examines how council size, electoral design, and institutional culture produce deliberative norms that contrast sharply with the adversarial dynamics of U.S. legislatures, and surveys the emerging practice of seating citizens' assemblies alongside elected bodies.
See the paper →