“Co-construction” in Deliberative Democracy: Lessons from the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate

Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet (1) , Bénédicte Apouey (2) , Hazem Arab (3) , Simon Baeckelandt (4) , Philippe Begout (5) , Nicolas Berghmans (6) , Nathalie Blanc (7, 8) , Jean-Yves Boulin (9, 10) , Eric Buge (11) , Dimitri Courant (12) , Amy Dahan (7) , Adrien Fabre (13) , Jean-Michel Fourniau (14) , Maxime Gaborit (15) , Laurence Granchamp (7) , Hélène Guillemot (7) , Laurent Jeanpierre (3) , Hélène Landemore (16) , Jean-François Laslier (2) , Antonin Macé (2) , Claire Mellier , Sylvain Mounier (5) , Théophile Pénigaud (17, 18) , Ana Povoas (19) , Christiane Rafidinarivo (20) , Bernard Reber (7) , Romane Rozencwajg (21) , Philippe Stamenkovic (22) , Selma Tilikete (23) , Solène Tournus (7)

1 ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech
2 PSE - Paris School of Economics
3 UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
4 Université de Lille
5 GIS DEMOCRATIE ET PARTICIPATION
6 IDDRI - Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales
7 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
8 LADYSS - Laboratoire Dynamiques Sociales et Recomposition des Espaces
9 Université Paris Dauphine-PSL
10 IRISSO - Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sciences Sociales
11 Assemblée Nationale
12 UNIL - Université de Lausanne = University of Lausanne
13 ETH Zürich - Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [Zürich]
14 Université Gustave Eiffel
15 Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles
16 Yale University [New Haven]
17 ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon
18 TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique
19 ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles
20 UR - Université de La Réunion
21 Cresppa-LabToP - Laboratoire Théories du politique : pouvoir et relations sociales
22 Université Ben Gourion du Néguev
23 Cresppa-CSU - Cultures et sociétés urbaines

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.

Keywords: Citizens’ assemblies; climate assemblies; deliberative democracy; co-construction; carbon tax; referendum

Domains: Political science; Environmental and Society; Law; Economics and Finance; Geography; Sociology

Louis-Gaëtan Giraudet, Bénédicte Apouey, Hazem Arab, Simon Baeckelandt, Philippe Begout, et al.. “Co-construction” in Deliberative Democracy: Lessons from the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2022, pp.207. ⟨10.1057/s41599-022-01212-6⟩. ⟨hal-03119539v2⟩