It Is Time to Let Strangers Shape Our Future
Ailbhe Smyth addressing a Citizens’ Assembly on Irish Unity. Photo courtesy of Openverse.
Throughout the amber-laden autumn of 2012, Finbarr O’Brien, 62, found himself disgruntled and closed off from the political scene in Ireland. Having always harbored a distrust for politicians, this wasn’t necessarily a new sentiment. O’Brien maintained a strict lifestyle that didn’t involve much change. He worked as a mailman, did not attend university, and had just a few years of schooling.
At this time, Ireland was facing a financial and confidence crisis. Many citizens, like O’Brien, felt a sense of injustice with regard to the political system. As elites gained increasingly greater influence in government decisions, ordinary citizens were beginning to feel sidelined. With referendums proving ineffective and often misguided, the Irish government was forced to revolutionize their approach to larger issues. Rather than let polarization and anger fester, they decided to implement a citizens’ assembly to directly restore political efficacy.
At its core, a citizens’ assembly is a randomly selected group of individuals that represents the demographics and social features of the whole society. The selection process often happens through selection, where a true lottery chooses people from the electorate, ultimately giving every person an equal shot at participating. In practice, organizers may send out thousands of invitations and then select respondents using a ‘stratified random process,’ meaning the final group mirrors the population’s age, geography, gender, income, and other important demographics. Technically, anyone, from a mailman to a university president, could be chosen, as long as the assembly looks like and represents the varied values and interests of the community it represents.
Once selected, members spend multiple weekends working through briefing materials, attending lectures, questioning experts, and engaging in facilitated discussions and deliberations. The structure of this process is meant to truly transform the participants into a knowledgeable, cohesive body capable of wrestling with thorny policy questions. By design, it sidesteps partisan pressures and amplifies voices that rarely reach the halls of power, ultimately producing recommendations grounded in both evidence and lived experiences.
Ireland’s assembly was made up of 100 citizens randomly chosen from the electorate. The assembly was asked to deliberate on aspects of the Irish Constitution, including whether to change a constitutional provision forbidding same-sex marriage. Despite having little to no political perspicacity, Finbarr O’Brien was selected to be a member of this citizens’ assembly—a fact that made him the perfect candidate for this revolutionary practice.
Where Ireland’s stalemate prompted innovation, the United States’ deepening political turmoil has hardened divisions, constituting a desperate cry for help. The limitations of our democracy are readily apparent as the weight of partisan divides erodes public trust. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2022, 62% of Republicans and 54% of Democrats say they have very unfavorable views of the other party. These levels of antipathy are significantly higher than they were a few decades ago, with reports from 1994 suggesting fewer than a quarter in both parties rated the other unfavorably.
These sentiments don’t just stop at “us-versus-them.” They have created a catalyst, paralyzing the pursuit of identifying the legislative middle ground. In 2022, the Pew Research Center published another study with data indicating that 72% of Republicans and 48% of Democrats preferred their leaders to stand up to the other side rather than work together on policy solutions. These aren’t just statistics; rather, they are a direct reflection of the despair of millions of Americans who no longer have faith in their own government.
With a sizable majority favoring conflict over compromise, a full-blown legitimacy crisis has erupted. As of February 2025, just 29% of Americans say they approve of Congress’s job, while 65% say they disapprove. These ratings are not just limited to D.C. Across the country, many states are facing difficulty getting through discourse and disagreement. In Iowa’s 2023 legislative session, only one out of 143 Democrat-sponsored amendments passed. In total, out of 164 amendments that made it into legislation in both the Iowa Senate and House, only 19 passed, according to an analysis published by the advocacy group Progress Iowa. When compromise, the cornerstone of our democracy, vanishes, our system grinds to a halt.
When elected officials refuse to bridge divides, critical policies stall, and citizens rightfully lose faith in a process that is marred by partisan warfare. This loss of faith and control has also been exacerbated in recent months as a lack of democratic form has led to an increase in actions like executive orders that bypass standard precedent and involvement. The longer the US fails to combat division or return political voice to those who benefit from it the most, the more our democratic foundation will crack under the weight of deepening mistrust and fragmentation. From climate threats to healthcare access issues and poor educational outcomes, our country is in desperate need of bold solutions that can be achieved without gridlock and political theatrics.
Citizens’ assemblies, which have already been successfully implemented in other democracies around the world, present a viable and unique opportunity to enable our divided communities to find common ground and identify solutions to a plethora of problems. More specifically, they can be a powerful tool to improve engagement in civic participation, enhance evidence-driven debate, encourage political efficacy, and, most importantly, build the vital trust between a democracy and its citizens.
Improving Engagement in Civic Participation
One of the most important aspects of an assembly—that citizens are randomly selected to participate through the process of sortition—recognizes that everyone has something to contribute. Random selection also focuses on reaching those who may not be heavily invested in the outcome, ultimately engaging a truly representative cross-section of a community. It is this environment—where all walks of life come together—that builds bridges, lessens polarization, and offers citizens the opportunity to emphasize the issues that may be important for politicians to examine.
Enhancing Evidence-Driven Debate
While critics may point out that “everyday citizens” could struggle to handle complex policy debates, it is important to highlight that assemblies aren’t just a free-for-all, but rather a highly facilitated process. Briefing materials are vetted by multi-partisan panels to ensure balanced evidence. Dozens of expert witnesses present pros and cons while participants have ample time to ask questions. Additionally, professional moderators work to guard against the dominance of louder voices or outside media influence.
With social media generating intense misinformation, and the divisive tones of cable television adding to its appeal, facts and evidence often get lost in the heat of political discourse. However, by the end of an assembly, delegates will have fully learned how to formulate informed recommendations. They are given the time and space needed to interact with the topic to their greatest ability and may even spend more time than seasoned legislators gaining clarity and nuance on a single issue.
Encouraging Political Efficacy and Efficiency
Research from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that this process emboldens citizens in their abilities and encourages further contribution. It is a common experience of representatives to awaken a sense of political efficacy following the completion of the assembly.
The efficiency of these bodies has already been well researched and documented. Studies by the OECD count 600 examples of citizens’ assemblies in Mongolia, Japan, Germany, Chile, Brazil, Belgium, and Austria. The spate of these assemblies throughout the world indicates an exciting potential for producing real change in the U.S. as well.
Building Trust Between Governments and Their Citizens
It is important to acknowledge that citizens’ assemblies are not free and may require substantial investment. However, they can also be established for a variety of different actions. A small, one-off assembly of 20-30 people can range from $30,000 to $100,000, while a larger, more technical process, dealing with a contentious issue, can involve 200+ delegates and cost upwards of $250,000. To address ongoing needs, a standing or governance assembly, which meets periodically or year-round, typically lands around $150,000.
While the costs may stick out, the social and political benefits are far greater than any monetary strain. At the heart of U.S. political turmoil is the fact that trust is a two-way street. Not only is there a crisis of public trust in government, but there is also a distrust of citizens by those in power. Through the current political framework, no mechanism exists to bridge this divide. Both sides of the aisle will continue to yell with the hopes of being louder than the other, ultimately drowning out the solutions that are right in front of them. With citizens’ assemblies, people are given the chance to fill the shoes of politicians. The electorate increases their understanding of the difficulty of political decision-making while governments gain confidence in the ability of those they represent.
However, the question still remains whether or not leaders will listen to the recommendations produced by the assembly. Another major critique is that the assembly’s proposals are not legally binding. Pre-commitments, such as when Ireland’s government pledges in advance to respond substantively to every recommendation, are what transform an assembly’s recommendations from advisory into a political mandate that emboldens both sides. The process highlights civil-society partnerships, and elected officials can leverage their citizen-driven credibility to build public support for controversial policies.
We can see all these positives culminate when examining Finbarr O’Brien and Ireland’s citizens’ assembly. When O’Brien attended his first assembly meeting, he was a conservative Catholic opposed to same-sex marriage. One of the first people he met was Chris Lyons, a 26-year-old gay man from Dublin. It was a meeting of complete opposites. Both men also harbored deep wounds that would otherwise ostracize them from each other. When Finbarr was 9, he was molested by another man, fueling a hatred for gay men. When Chris came out to his parents, they told him to never return to their house, inciting strong resentment.
Despite these adversarial backgrounds, their encounter would not have flourished if it hadn’t been encouraged by the assembly's neutral environment, where respectful dialogue triumphed over preconceived notions. Bit by bit, polite small talk gave way to honest and truthful dialogue. All while listening to a technical presentation on same-sex marriage legislation from both sides, not only did their physical differences dissolve, but also their ideological differences.
Ultimately, 79 percent of the citizens’ assembly voted in favor of legalizing same sex marriage in Ireland. Parliament accepted their recommendation, and a few years later, a referendum to amend the constitution was presented to the whole country—it passed with 62 percent in favor.
Finbarr O’Brien and Chris Lyon’s unlikely friendship is indicative of the true essence of citizens’ assemblies. Their evolution of thought and the understanding they reached through neutral and progressive dialogue is how politics should function. Both men began the assembly with a distrust in politics, but their appreciation and involvement ended up growing because the Irish government trusted them.
The United States has the chance to do the same. While it will require additional resources and a new mindset as to how we approach problems, citizens’ assemblies can be the key to unlocking the political cohesion we are all looking for.
Ethan Machado (CC ’27) is a staff writer from Sacramento, California, studying economics and political science. He can be reached at eam2312@columbia.edu.