Reimagining Climate Governance: Are Climate Assemblies Reshaping Climate Policy?

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The inertia of elected institutions in addressing the scale and urgency of the challenge posed by climate change has led to a search for new institutional interventions that might kick-start a sclerotic climate governance system. One proposal, welcomed by everyone from the OECD to the Extinction Rebellion, has been the creation of climate assemblies of randomly selected citizens tasked with deliberating upon and generating recommendations for climate policy. Europe has recently seen a wave of such initiatives on both the local and national level, so it is time to ask, ‘are they making a difference?’ What, if any, impacts do they have on public opinion and policy outcomes? This panel brings together conceptual and empirical contributions to addressing this question.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Democratic Innovations

Cosponsor

• Division 39: Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics

Individual Presentations

• Integrating Citizen Climate Deliberations for Impact: A New Analysis Framework - Rikki Dean, Goethe University Frankfurt; Paulina Pospieszna, Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan; Jean-Benoit Pilet, Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Brigitte Geissel, Goethe University of Frankfurt

• Democratizing Expertise: Learnings from the Southampton Climate Assembly - 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

• The Communicative Potential of Deliberation for Correcting Climate Misperception - Jane Suiter, Dublin City University; Kevin Saude, University of Limerick

Chair

• Dimitri Courant Harvard University

Discussants

• Maija Jäske University of Turku

• Matt Ryan University of Southampton