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.
Conceived as an alternative form of democratic representation, the random selection of citizens for a political task comes in tension with the logic of electoral representation. The idea, carried by random selection, that anyone can be a good enough representative challenges the assumption that we need to choose the most competent among ourselves. And the fact that citizens' assemblies are sometimes tasked to draft legislation may undermine the authority of elected representatives. This article tests this hypothesis of tension between competing forms of representation on a recent case: the French Citizen Convention for Climate (CCC) in 2020. Drawing on parliamentary hearings and questions as well as public political reactions to the CCC, we find indications that elected representatives may feel threatened in their legitimacy even when most randomly selected citizens do not see themselves as representatives. This may be due to the fact that the CCC was seen by some as stepping on the prerogatives of the Parliament. This suggests that future experiments of the sort could benefit from a clearer functional division between the two forms of representation.
L’article compare le fonctionnement de la Convention citoyenne pour le climat française (CCC) avec celui des missions d’information de l’Assemblée nationale. D’une part, il montre que si les deux structures reposent sur une forme de division du travail entre leurs membres, cette dernière repose sur des logiques différentes : affiliation partisane dans le cas de l’Assemblée et création d’une identité collective pour la CCC. D’autre part, si l’Assemblée distingue nettement les rôles des député·es, des fonctionnaires et des expert·es auditionné·es, la Convention a fonctionné comme un « collectif hybride » réunissant citoyen·nes, Comité de gouvernance, expert·es, etc. Sur le fondement de cette comparaison, l’article se conclut par quelques suggestions de design institutionnel pour les conventions à venir.
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