Scientific assessment of the Austrian Climate Citizens’ Assembly

There is a surge of interest in recent years in climate citizen assemblies (CCA) worldwide and several high-profile processes have been carried out or a planned currently. This development feeds into an on-going international debate about reforming democracy by using deliberative ‘minipublics’ which are constituted by randomly selected citizens in order to promote two normative ideals at once: ensuring sustainability while safeguarding democracy. Novel deliberative method(s) offer a response to the deficiencies of representative democracy as part of a wider effort by democratic institutions to become more open to citizen’s input and collective knowledge. The proposed project "Scientific assessment of the Austrian Climate Citizens’ Assembly" (SACCA) contributes to the analysis and advancement of democratic innovations in the context of climate policy and provides evidence to guide future good practices and opportunities for institutionalizing citizens’ deliberation in Austria. The project will conduct an interdisciplinary assessment of the Austrian Climate Citizens’ Assembly and compares the Austrian process and results with other deliberative minipublics at the national level. The project is structured into six work packages (WP) that describe the project’s assessment approach, which is guided by international standards of project evaluation.