Citizens' assemblies: Top-down or bottom-up? - both, please!

Abstract

This chapter provides a critical reflection on conceptualizations of top-down and bottom-up citizens' assemblies (CAs). Through a review of the literature and analysis of paradigmatic examples we identify main characteristics of each ideal type. Ideal-type top-down assemblies are opened by state institutions to address a predefined policy issue and strengthen the legitimacy of the commissioning body. Ideal-type bottom-up assemblies are led by civil society, provide space for citizen agenda-setting and might have ambitions for more radical reform projects but struggle to have tangible impact because of looser or no links with centres of power. However, the practice of CAs is less clear-cut: bottom-up approaches are not always better at ensuring more inclusive processes, and top-down CAs do not seem to have such a good record in terms of impact just because they work closely with state institutions. Our assessment of four different dimensions of the top-down/bottom-up heuristic allows for a more differentiated assessment of types of CAs that may also flexibly combine bottom-up and top-down elements.