Deliberative Democracy and Ecological Transition: The French Citizens' Convention for Climate(ISTE Invoiced)

Democracies are struggling to respond to the climate crisis. One promising approach to the ecological transition is based on innovations involving panels of citizens drawn at random. Many countries have experimented with this form of deliberative democracy at national and local levels. These citizens’ assemblies formulate public policy proposals. The French Citizens' Convention for Climate is the largest in terms of size, duration and mandate. Thanks to a multi-disciplinary field survey involving around twenty researchers, this book provides an understanding of the complexity of this experience from several angles: procedures and processes; the identity and roles of its members; relationships with expertise and representatives; evaluation and comparison with other cases. Deliberative Democracy and Ecological Transition plays an important role in reflecting on an original practice of democratic innovation and its potential for fair governance of climate policies.

Table of Contents:
Endorsements xiii Acknowledgements xv Introduction xvii Dimitri COURANT and Bernard REBER I.1. Deliberative mini-publics, elsewhere and previously xix I.2. An exceptional scheme xxi I.3. A cross-disciplinary study to move past an oversimplistic narrative xxiii I.4. Presentation of the book xxv I.5. An atypical field study for a multidisciplinary collective xxxii I.6. References xxxvi Part 1. A Complex Deliberative Process 1 Chapter 1. Genesis and Evolution of the Citizens' Convention for Climate 3 Dimitri COURANT 1.1. Precursors and context: the Grand débat national and the citizen group of the ESEC 4 1.2. A negotiated and hybrid device: between militant lobbying and political strategy 5 1.3. Modifications and crises 16 1.4. Conclusion 25 1.5. References 25 Chapter 2. Governing Committee and Political Role 29 Jean-Michel FOURNIAU 2.1. Self-government or external leadership of citizens' assemblies 30 2.2. Composition of the governing committee: a political negotiation 33 2.3. Role of the governing committee and scope of autonomy 37 2.4. "Sovereignty" of the Convention 40 2.5. Conclusion: an innovative participatory device or a new form of democratic representation 42 2.6. References 43 Chapter 3. Comparing Ireland's Citizens' Assembly and France's Citizens' Convention 47 Dimitri COURANT 3.1. Random selection to the rescue of democracy and ecology 47 3.2. Ireland's Citizens' Assembly: between citizen autonomy and control by the managers 51 3.3. Comparative analysis with France's Convention: a more partial but more productive deliberation 59 3.4. Conclusion 69 3.5. Acknowledgements 70 3.6. References 70 Chapter 4. The Pandemic and Conflicts of Legitimacy: Session 6bis 75 Bernard REBER and Nathalie BLANC 4.1. Accelerated improvisation 77 4.2. Influences on the Co-Chairs' and citizens' reactions 82 4.3. Management, selection and cascading votes 87 4.4. Media leak and crisis within the governing committee 93 4.5. Conclusion 95 4.6. References 99 Part 2. Convention Members and Public Opinion 101 Chapter 5. France in Miniature: The Descriptive Legitimacy of the Random Selection Process 103 Jean-Michel FOURNIAU, Bénédicte APOUEY and Solène TOURNUS 5.1. Initial recruitment of the 150 citizens 104 5.2. Changes in the Convention's composition as it progressed 111 5.3. Sociodemographic characteristics of the participants in the Citizens' Convention for Climate 113 5.4. Composition of the thematic groups 118 5.5. References 123 Chapter 6. Profiles and Opinions of the Convention Members Compared to Those of the Population 125 Adrien FABRE, Bénédicte APOUEY, Thomas DOUENNE, Jean-Michel FOURNIAU, Louis-Gaëtan GIRAUDET, Jean-François LASLIER and Solène TOURNUS 6.1. Introduction 126 6.2. Statistical representativity 128 6.3. Deliberative citizens 145 6.4. The general public's perceptions of the Convention 149 6.5. Conclusion 156 6.6. References 157 Chapter 7. The Convention Members' Opinions on Climate Measures 159 Bénédicte APOUEY, Thomas DOUENNE and Jean-François LASLIER 7.1. Originally, mass support for the measures... with three exceptions 161 7.2. Sociodemography of the support for the climate measures 165 7.3. Perceptions relating to climate change and support for the measures 170 7.4. Trust, life satisfaction, expectations and degree of support for the measures 174 7.5. Citizens divided on the issue of the carbon tax, from the outset 179 7.6. Evolution of the degree of support for the measures over the course of the Convention 182 7.7. Conclusion 183 7.8. References 185 Part 3. Deliberations, Proposals and Expertise 187 Chapter 8. Deliberative Impartiality and Legitimacy of the Influences 189 Dimitri COURANT and Simon BAECKELANDT 8.1. Impartiality as a deliberative imperative 191 8.2. Objectivizing impartiality 194 8.3. Around the citizens: politically committed organizers and experts 196 8.4. Evaluating attempts to influence: modes of interaction and legitimacy 199 8.5. Conclusion: proceduralizing impartiality 216 8.6. References 220 Chapter 9. Roles of the Experts and of the Citizens in Devising the Measures Put Forward: The Thematic Group "Housing" 225 Louis-Gaëtan GIRAUDET and Hélène GUILLEMOT 9.1. Characteristics and issues surrounding "Housing" as a field 226 9.2. Experts and stakeholders 227 9.3. Development and progression of the measures 229 9.4. Role of the citizens, and role of the experts 232 9.5. The measures, and what became of them 235 9.6. Conclusion 238 9.7. References 239 Chapter 10. The Relationships to Expertise in Light of "Technical" Democracy 241 Selma TILIKETE 10.1. The C3 in line with a dialog-based model? 244 10.2. Acting in a situation of "consensus on the diagnosis" 251 10.3. Expanding the approach to the climate problem 255 10.4. Relaying the experts' proposals, and making them fairer 259 10.5. Conclusion 262 10.6. References 264 Chapter 11. Getting Around the Issue of the "Carbon Tax" 267 Romane ROZENCWAJG, Bénédicte APOUEY, Maxime GABORIT, Laurent JEANPIERRE and Jean-François LASLIER 11.1. Initial rejection of the "carbon tax" 268 11.2. In search of substitute measures 275 11.3. Conclusion 283 11.4. References 285 Part 4. Social Movements, Justice and Exceptions 287 Chapter 12. Conceptions of Social, Environmental and Climate Justice 289 Nathalie BLANC and Laurence GRANCHAMP 12.1. Definitions of social, environmental and climate justice 291 12.2. Political and organizational frameworks 292 12.3. Debates on social justice in Session 2 of the C3 294 12.4. A step toward environmental and climate justice 299 12.5. Conclusion 303 12.6. References 304 Chapter 13. Contestation and Deliberation: Activists and the Randomly Selected Citizens 307 Maxime GABORIT 13.1. An organization open to social dynamics 309 13.2. Diversity of interactions between activists and randomly selected citizens 313 13.3. Moving past the dichotomy between contestation and deliberation 322 13.4. References 324 Chapter 14. Representativity and Exceptionality: Citizens from Overseas and Co-decision 327 Christiane RAFIDINARIVO 14.1. Dynamics of co-decision on public policy and construction of the research object 329 14.2. Descriptive representativity and political representation: the exceptionality of the Overseas Territories 334 14.3. The argument of exceptionality 341 14.4. Conclusion 355 14.5. Acknowledgements 358 14.6. References 359 Part 5. Comparisons, Filters and Accountability 365 Chapter 15. The Bürgerrat Klima: Germany's Informal Model for Integrating Citizen Deliberation into Politics 367 Rikki DEAN and Gabriel PELLOQUIN 15.1. Bürgerrat Klima's internal characteristics 369 15.2. The Assembly's integrative characteristics 375 15.3. Conclusion 382 15.4. References 384 Chapter 16. Ambiguities of the Phrase "With No Filter" and the Necessary Filters 387 Bernard REBER 16.1. "With no filter": the ambiguity of a promise 390 16.2. The filters of the Convention 396 16.3. Legal filters 404 16.4. The lacking filters of conceptions of justice 407 16.5. Evaluation of the accountability process 410 16.6. Conclusion: filters as "fictions", necessary for mutual understanding 419 16.7. References 422 Conclusion 427 Bernard REBER C.1. Evaluation as a conflictive issue: doing better than the GDN 428 C.2. No analysis without descriptive and normative filters 431 C.3. The filters represented by the criteria used, and adherence to them 432 C.4. Justifications of the criteria 433 C.5. Presuppositions 436 C.6. With and beyond Habermasian fiction and Rawlsian conjecture 438 C.7. References 439 List of Authors 443 Index 445

About the Author :
Dimitri Courant is a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, USA. He holds a double doctorate in political science from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and the University of Paris 8, France. He was a postdoctoral Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University, USA. Bernard Reber is a philosopher, specializing in ethics and politics, Director of Research at the CNRS and a member of the Political Research Center at Sciences Po Paris, Cevipof, France. For over two decades, he has analyzed and helped to set up a number of deliberative experiments.