Citizens Jury

The history of the citizens jury process was begun independently by Peter Dienel, in Wuppertal, [Page 133]Germany, in January 1971, and Ned Crosby, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in March 1971. Although Dienel called it a Planungszelle, and Crosby called it a citizen committee, both were manifestations of approximately the same concept, namely, to what extent can a democratic process similar to a courtroom jury empower citizens, as jurors, to engage in reasonable and informed discussion on public policy issues?

Dienel created his method based upon work he did at a conference center where he observed many groups having dialogues with each other and upon his views on democracy stemming from his doctoral work in sociology. He decided to work with groups of 20 to 25 randomly selected people for an event lasting 4 or 5 days. He brought in witnesses with different views to speak with the groups. Often they were broken into small groups to enhance the ability to speak with each other more easily. One of Dienel's innovations was to hold two Planungszellen at the same time on the same topic in neighboring rooms, with witnesses going back and forth between the two.

Crosby's approach stemmed from his doctoral thesis on social ethics and decision making. He randomly selected a group of people to have them discuss public policy in a reasonable way in a situation where they could show concern for each other (borrowing this from the reason-in-ethics moral philosophers). He was also aware of the many small group studies in social psychology showing the irrationality of people under certain group dynamics. He proposed to structure juries to minimize such dynamics. By the time Dienel and Crosby learned of each other's work in 1985, the two processes were surprisingly similar.

According to a chapter by Crosby and Doug Nethercut (2005), these are the seven elements that make up a citizens jury process:

• 1.
  Randomly selected participants that represent a microcosm of the community
• 2.
  As large a group as possible (not greater than 24) conducive to deliberation
• 3.
  Witnesses rather than staff present high-quality information and answer jurors' questions
• 4.
  Promotion of high-quality deliberation through careful facilitation
• 5.
  Minimal staff bias
• 6.
  Strive for a fair agenda and hearing process
• 7.
  Provide sufficient time for the process (typically 5 days)

In the 1990s, the Citizens Jury model became more widely adopted around the world. In 1994, the Citizens Jury process spread to Britain with the launch of a booklet from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) of London. In an effort to maintain uniformity in procedures, the Jefferson Center placed a trademark on Citizens Jury process by that time to prevent its commercial use. (The center was prepared to let anyone use the method at no charge, so long as they followed a set process.) The IPPR, however, did not uphold the trademark, which meant that anyone could conduct a Citizens Jury in Britain according to whatever process they wanted. This ultimately led the process to be much more widely used in the United Kingdom, where best estimates are that over 300 events have been run under that name. Citizens juries are also now being run with some regularity in Australia, and the process is beginning to spread around the world.

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