Citizens and policy makers together: hybrid processes for smarter policies

How can we design processes bringing citizens and policy makers smartly together?

“What I realized is that we make so many mistakes because we don’t talk to the people who actually use the service.”

This observation was made by the mayor of Gentofte, a city north of Copenhagen. In order to ensure that public policy is as effective and legitimate as possible, he opted to fundamentally transform the decision-making process by fostering a new approach to dialogue between citizens and politicians: the introduction of “Political Task Committees” (PTCs).

PTCs represent a successful example of hybrid processes that effectively bring citizens and politicians together in a strategic manner to enhance policy-making. Another recent example emerged from the Wallonia region of Belgium: the Deliberative Committees. Thirty citizens, chosen by random selection, collaborated with ten Walloon MPs as part of a committee tasked with considering citizens’ proposals over six sessions. Together, they addressed the question: “How can we engage Walloons in decision-making processes in a deliberative and enduring manner, drawing inspiration from the ongoing citizen dialogue present in the German-speaking Community, which operates through random selection?”.

Smarter Together’s webinar discussed this important democratic innovation relying on Collective Intelligence’s principles.