Citizens’ Assemblies

Recently, much energy has gone into finding ways to reinvigorate Auroville’s organization, and the Residents Assembly in particular. There is a widespread feeling that our present organisation is dysfunctional. This is reflected, among other things, in a lack of vision and excessive bureaucracy. There is also felt to be a widening gap between the residents and the major working groups, leading to accusations that the Residents Assembly is being sidelined regarding certain important decisions. 

After a General Meeting in August called in response to concerns about the situation, three task forces formed. One was tasked to propose a new procedure for selecting members of major working groups; another to envision ways of overhauling the larger organisation; and a third to ‘revive’ the Residents Assembly. 

In parallel with these initiatives, another small group has begun independently exploring another way in which residents can be educated about the major issues facing the community as well as empowered to inform decision-making: Citizens’ Assemblies. 

Citizens’ Assemblies are attempts to encourage all citizens to participate in governance.  Although the roots of ‘participatory and deliberative democracy’ can be traced back to ancient Athens, there is renewed interest in the concept today, and experiments have taken place in Canada, the Netherlands, the U.K., Poland, and in India. In Canada and The Netherlands the topic was electoral reform. In Andhra Pradesh the topic was the future of farming in the state. Here a group of small farmers, after hearing from experts, concluded that the state should allow local community control over farming, and rejected the state’s preferred option of GM crops and increased mechanisation. 

Perhaps the best publicised Citizens’ Assemblies to date have taken place in Ireland, where they played an important role in influencing recent referenda on abortion and same sex marriage. 

While Citizens’ Assemblies can take different forms, the core features remain the same. These are the random selection of participants which try to reflect a cross-section of the population; facilitated discussion of an important issue after inputs from experts and proponents/opponents of different perspectives; and a final report which may contain recommendations for action.     

A Citizens’ Assembly, which can number between 20 – 200 participants, dissolves once its task is completed and a new one is randomly selected for a new topic. Citizens’ Assemblies are run by a team of coordinators whose impartiality is essential and who have no stake in any particular outcome. They are responsible for overseeing the process of random selection, inviting experts, stakeholders and facilitators, and ensuring the outcomes from the process would be shared with the relevant people for consideration. 

Relevance to Auroville

Citizens’ Assemblies could address particular challenges which hamper the Auroville community at the moment. For example, our current selection process leaves many people feeling excluded and believing that the process is biased. Random selection prevents these potential or perceived biases as, potentially, everyone in Auroville has the same opportunity to participate and have their voice heard.

Again, very few voices are currently being heard in the collective space, yet we need more people to participate and be engaged if we are to shape an inclusive collective future.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, the process very much aligns with the Auroville value of unending education. Often, when we are called to decide upon important issues, it is difficult to obtain all the necessary information, but at Citizen’s Assemblies there is an attempt to present all the data and perspectives on an issue.  Participants also learn critical thinking and how to recognise personal biases and biased information. As these skills and capacities spread within the community, they will help build a more conscious and mature collective.

While Citizens’ Assemblies have much to offer, they are not seen as a replacement for our present selection process and organisation. Rather, they could be another way of empowering the Residents Assembly and supporting the work of the working groups.  

The small group interested in exploring Citizens’ Assemblies has now begun informing the larger community about the concept.  Feedback so far has been largely positive, even enthusiastic. At the same time, various points have been raised for consideration. They include how to achieve a representative sample of a complex, multicultural community like Auroville, and even if it is wise or necessary; concern about the language –’Citizens’ Assemblies’ sounds too similar to ‘Residents Assembly’– and concern about the approach. One person observed, after watching a video of the Irish experience, that the approach was overwhelmingly ‘mental’, mind-based, an approach which may not appeal to or ‘reach’ some of our population. 

Another area that was raised for consideration was the time and energy that may be required from participants. For some assemblies (such as the Irish one) participants came together over several weekends and they were required to undertake considerable reading in between. (In recognition of the work they contributed, they were paid a reasonable stipend – something that would be unlikely to happen in Auroville.) Other forms of assembly (like ‘citizens juries’) require less input both in terms of attendance and background reading. 

Considerable organisation is necessary to make citizens’ assemblies a success. This includes, in addition to a team of coordinators, translators and skilled facilitators, people able to present information on what may be a complex topic in a readily accessible way. 

All of these are important considerations, which is why the core group is considering running a small pilot next year to try to find some answers. It may well be that Citizens’ Assemblies in their current form will need to be adapted to the particular conditions of Auroville.  For example, participants could be randomly selected from the Master’s List rather than from any specific category. But in the context of current attempts to reinvigorate our collective and include more people in our civic deliberations, Citizens’ Assemblies seem to hold promising possibilities.