Assessing the Agonistic Potentials of Citizens’ Assemblies

A debate about the normative standing of citizens’ assemblies can benefit from the perspective of agonistic democracy. Agonists argue that deliberative democrats neglect the persistency of disagreement and the value of conflict, but they share with proponents of deliberative mini-publics the understanding that novel forms of citizen participation are a chance to revive democracy: they can expand the range of publicly heard voices, pluralise opportunities for articulating dissent, and revivify the democratic belief in the formability of the polity. However, the design of mini-publics in many respects prevents a full exploitation of such democratic potentials. Regarding the internal operations, an agonistic perspective criticises random selection and the narrow procedural focus on the provision of information and fair argumentation. Regarding the impact on the polity, it criticises that mini-publics usually allow governments to cherry-pick, to the effect that hegemonic political relationships remain untouched. This contribution to the roundtable discussion has two objectives. First, it shows how these critical considerations can be used constructively to outline agonistic possibilities of designing bodies for citizen participation. Second, it looks to actual cases of citizens’ assemblies to assess the agonistic potentials of current mini-public practices. At least some citizens’ assemblies are already more agonistic regarding their potential impact on the polity than regarding their internal operations, but the agonistic perspective provides impulses for further developing the practices of citizens’ assemblies in both respects.