Relationship of Citizen Assembly Formats and Resource Access to Consensus Quality in Energy Transition Debates
Keywords:
Citizen Assemblies, Energy Transition, Consensus Quality, Resource Access, Citizen Assembly FormatsAbstract
The global urgency to mitigate climate change requires transformative energy policies, yet such transitions often face substantial public resistance and political gridlock. Citizen assemblies have emerged as a prominent democratic innovation designed to overcome these barriers by fostering deep deliberation and building consensus among diverse groups of laypeople. However, the quality and durability of the consensus generated by these assemblies vary significantly across different implementations. This paper investigates the structural and procedural factors that explain consensus quality, focusing specifically on citizen assembly formats and the extent of resource access provided to participants during energy transition debates. Through a comprehensive comparative analysis of multiple assembly cases, this study conceptualizes how different organizational structures, such as plenary sessions versus small-group deliberations, intersect with the availability of cognitive, informational, and temporal resources. The findings indicate that while decentralized small-group formats promote egalitarian participation, their ability to yield high-quality consensus is strictly contingent upon symmetric access to expert knowledge and sufficient time for information processing. Furthermore, resource constraints disproportionately impact participants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, thereby skewing the deliberative output and degrading the overall legitimacy of the consensus. By systematically evaluating these variables, this research provides critical theoretical and empirical insights into the design of democratic innovations, offering actionable recommendations for policymakers seeking to facilitate equitable and effective energy transitions.References
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