in turn help reduce conflict allowing for a cohesive and constructive democracy. Research done by Torgler explores fiscal benefits of involvement in decision making such as willingness to pay tax 1 . Further social benefits such as increased political awareness could bring about positive externalities for the whole of democracy as political literacy gained from informed speakers at assemblies would allow for more informed decisions to be made outside of the assembly environment which would aid in the flourishing of democracy. Despite this, there is no evidence implying that participation in sortition based citizen assemblies leads to a sustained increase in engagement, suggesting benefits of citizens assemblies to democracy may be bounded to the short term. A further strength in support of Renwick’s claim regards the construction and design of DMPs. Firstly, assemblies are often funded by impartial associates. (Renwick’s assembly on Brexit was funded by ERSC) 2 . This helps to eliminate any alternate motives. Secondly, the discussion is moderated by trained facilitators allowing for everyone’s opinion to be voiced and to ensure respectful, on-topic discussions. This is backed up by a survey carried out by Renwick’s assembly members where the overall rating of the event and opportunity to express their views was scored on average, 4.6 out of 5 3 . Finally, representative random sampling and stratification grid filling has been used to select participants to ensure members are representative of the wider voting demographic. If designed in the ‘correct’ way there is no doubt that Citizens assemblies would represent a better way of doing democracy. However, establishing what this ‘correct’ way is, is challenging. For example, simple questions such as who counts as a citizen, are still widely debated. Moreover, there are no laws on how citizens assemblies are to be conducted, only guidelines, which point to subjective standards including sufficient time, and generative learning which are vulnerable to interpretation. These ambiguous standards could be abused by politicians looking to boost their political agenda. The primary predicaments against Renwick’s 4 claim regard the sample of participants, who they are, and how they are selected, the implementation of outcomes and the deliberation process. Deliberative assemblies are reliant on citizenry participation. However, as public goods are often central to deliberation, we are faced with the collective action problem meaning that “any rational individual will seek to forego the 1 Benno Torgler and Friedrich Schneider, ‘The impact of tax morale and institutional quality on the shadow economy’, Journal of Economic Psychology , 30.2, (2007), 228-245. 2 Alan Renwick, ‘Citizens’ assemblies: a better way of doing democracy?’, Political Insight , 8.3 (2017), 24-27 <https://doi.org/10.1177/2041905817744632> [accessed 14 July 2021].
3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.
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