Le assemblee cittadine come meccanismo di democrazia partecipativa. Le esperienze delle assemblee per il clima in Francia e in Spagna

Citizens’ Assemblies as a Mechanism of Participatory Democracy. The Experiences of the Climate Assemblies in France and Spain

Abstract

In Spain, on 21 May 2021, a citizens’ assembly was established to participate in the decision-making process on climate change through the elaboration of a final report with its recommendations. The same participatory mechanism had been used in France, through the Convention citoyenne pour le climat, whose members, that is citizens drawn by lot, between October 2019 and June 2020, had been called to discuss with each other and with experts to elaborate their proposals. The present paper aims to analyse the two experiences in order to bring out what can be considered the aspects that contribute most to strengthening of participatory democracy, but also to highlight the critical issues of these mechanisms for the citizens’ participation.