Democratizing Expertise: Learnings from the Southampton Climate Assembly

• In Event: Reimagining Climate Governance: Are Climate Assemblies Reshaping Climate Policy?

Abstract

Democratic decision-making is often claimed to require the “wisdom of the crowds”, “collective intelligence” and the “democratization of expertise”. At the same time, expert knowledge is crucial for enlightened will and opinion formation in complex political issues. By involving both random citizens and professional experts, citizens’ assemblies offer a great opportunity to combine different types of knowledge. Nevertheless, professional experts have been observed to have a big influence on assembly members, pushing aside lay and local knowledge. This paper examines the Southampton Citizens’ Climate Assembly’s attempt to achieve a more inclusive and democratic knowledge-building process by introducing and analysing "citizen witnesses" alongside professional experts. Preliminary analyses of survey results and field notes indicate that the citizen witnesses were perceived to supplement the information provided by the professional experts and were therefore highly valued by assembly members. In addition, the citizen witnesses prompted some assembly members to share their own personal experiences, and to reflect on their privileges and blind spots.

Authors

• Matt Ryan, University of Southampton

• Rafael Mestre, University of Southampton

• Zohreh Khoban, University of Southampton

• Katy Tabero, Southampton University

• Paolo Spada, University of Southampton

• Marco Meloni, University of Southampton