Rethinking Inclusion: A Deliberative Approach to Peace
To ensure a genuinely representative dialogue process, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) trialled a simple but radical approach: randomly selecting citizens to ensure they are statistically representative of the population, and inviting them to reach consensus on a key issue through a structured dialogue process.
In this paper, published by swisspeace, Alex Douglas and Sandra Petrovic draw on their experiences facilitating citizens’ assemblies in two conflict-related scenarios: post-pandemic recovery planning in Bangsamoro, the Philippines, and the use of social media ahead of elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
By empowering diverse, randomly selected participants to collaboratively discuss and reach consensus, HD aimed to incorporate deliberative democracy into the peacemaking sector. The paper highlights how this innovative approach can be used to create “enclaves of deliberation,” while inviting the peacemaking community to imagine these techniques as radical alternatives to elite-driven peace negotiations.
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