Swiss universities research new forms of democracy through citizen council
From November, the Universities of Zurich and Geneva will experiment with new forms of democracy through a ‘Citizen Council 2025’ project.
The aim is to investigate what such a council can contribute to the debate and solving of social challenges.
The University of Zurich (UZH), the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Centre for Democracy Studies in Aarau (ZDA) announced on Tuesday that Switzerland was facing urgent and sometimes deadlocked political challenges. A press release said that a national citizen council was a “promising format” for respectful debate over a controversial or politically deadlocked topic.
According to the organisers, topics were therefore pre-selected in collaboration with political parties. The citizen council, made up of 100 randomly drawn residents from across Switzerland, will discuss the topic favoured by the majority, in Aarau.
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Participants may debate energy supply security, the financing of old-age pensions, Swiss neutrality, rising healthcare costs, or the relationship between Switzerland and Europe.
Council should represent Swiss population
“We are not pursuing a substantive or political agenda, we are interested in scientifically studying the format of a citizen council in Switzerland,” Professor Dr Daniel Kübler, co-initiator of the project at UZH, is quoted as saying in the press release.
“We are interested in how an informed cross-section of the population position themselves on concrete political solutions.”
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The national citizen council project will take place from November 2024 to March 2025 and is aimed at reflecting the diversity of the Swiss population as far as possible, as well as ensuring the involvement of people with very different opinions.
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Translated from German by DeepL/kp/amva
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