By Elizabeth B. Jones
Beginning in the 1990s, the liberal democracies of northwestern Europe began to experiment with a new tool of governance, deliberative mini-publics, or DMPs, as an adjunct or complement to existing governing institutions. Denmark’s Consensus Conferences and Germany’s Planning Cells were pioneers in these experiments, and they were joined by a wave of others after 2000 and have since spread across the globe. Proponents have cheered the “deliberative wave” as a means of revitalizing stagnant or ailing liberal democracies. Critics have called for systematic studies of their impacts. However, the recent rise of right-wing populism also means that established democratic institutions, processes, and political parties must forge new ways of bolstering citizens’ trust and engaging voters over time. Perhaps the longest-running of these experiments is the Citizens’ Assemblies initiative established in the Vorarlberg province of Austria in 2006. Enshrined in the province’s constitution in 2013, the Vorarlberg model of Citizens’ Assemblies, or Bürgerräte, offers more than two decades’ worth of experience with trust-building between local governments, the state parliament, and its approximately 275,000 voters.
Coming soon!
The Vorarlberg Office of Administrative Innovation (Austria) was created in spring 2025, as the successor to the Office of Voluntary Engagement and Participation (Büro für Freiwilliges Engagement und Beteiligung). It is charged with the organization of Citizens’ Assemblies, a model of participatory democracy emulated across Austria, Europe, and the world.
Elizabeth B. Jones retired in 2019 from Colorado State University and now lives in Corvallis, Oregon. Her scholarship focused on rural Germany, gender, internal colonization, and the environment and includes articles published in Central European History, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, German History, Agricultural History, and Continuity and Change, among others. Her book, Gender and Rural Modernity: Farm Women and the Politics of Labor in Germany, 1871-1933, appeared in 2009. She lived in eastern Germany between 1993 and 1996, mainly in Leipzig and Dresden, and has made frequent returns since then. In 2021, she began a large oak savanna and meadow restoration project in Corvallis. She joined the research editorial board of Global Europe: A Journal Placing Europe in the World, in 2025.
