Citizens’ assemblies are deliberative communities made up of randomly selected members of the wider community with the aim of discussing issues of public concern. With regard to their functioning and their impact on communities, numerous articles can be found in the literature, but little attention has been paid to their background and the context in which they were set up. This paper, written by Dániel Oross, Eszter Mátyás and Sergiu Gherghina, aims to fill this gap by providing an analysis of the Budapest Climate Assembly, an initiative that is unique not only in Hungary but also in the Central and Eastern European region. The article examines the emergence of the initiative through the analysis of relevant documents and semi-structured interviews.

 

The full study is available HERE.

 

The deliberative democratic practice citizens' assemblies represent has been integrated into the decision-making of an increasing number of local and national government bodies since the 2000s. This may be driven by several factors, such as increasing chances of winning an election, raising public awareness of an issue, building a territory’s political identity or the desire to involve citizens in politics. The last decades have also seen a proliferation of citizens’ assemblies around the issue of climate change in Western Europe, often initiated at the government level (mainly by Green and Left parties). The top-down organisation of citizens’ assemblies, however, opposes their grassroots tactics watering down their transformative potential.

The Budapest Climate Assembly was embraced by the Municipality of Budapest as it meant an important step towards meeting the requirements of the European Green Deal, i.e. carbon neutrality. The Municipality of Budapest, elected in 2019, did not only seek to fulfil its election promises. As the interview with Mayor Gergely Karácsony shows, an ideological match also played an important role behind the initiative, which comprises the desired increase in citizens’ political activity, the incorporation of democratic innovations and the will to develop local communities.

The most important distinguishing feature of the Budapest Climate Assembly in its implementation, in contrast to similar initiatives in Western Europe, is the significant role played by civil society actors. The organisation and coordination work was carried out by DemNet (Hungary) and the Sortition Foundation (United Kingdom) utilising international financial support. The themes and the agenda of the citizens’ assembly were developed by these two NGOs in tight cooperation with the Municipality of Budapest. In addition to concrete policy outcomes, the initiative aimed to educate the local population about the environment and raise public awareness for the cause through the media. The results of this study contribute to the theorising process surrounding citizens’ assemblies by extending the field to include Central and Eastern Europe and by presenting an initiative that has maintained its grassroots character.