Professor Graham Smith is recognised in academic and practitioner circles as a world-leading expert in the study of democratic innovations – he was recently named one of the 100 most influential academics in government. His research in this area is widely acknowledged as central to the establishment of democratic innovations as a legitimate field of study within political science.
Smith has a particular specialism in the design and application of citizens’ assemblies, which are part of a broader family of “deliberative mini-publics” (DMPs) that combine random selection and facilitated deliberation. Smith’s innovative research has clarified the distinctive design characteristics of DMPs, distinguishing this institutional form from other approaches to participatory governance.
Summary of the impact
Smith has undertaken ground-breaking practice-based research that has influenced the adoption of citizens’ assemblies in the UK political system and is shaping the practice of climate assemblies across Europe. Smith has been a co-investigator on two major ESRC projects and is currently funded by the European Climate Foundation.
The first ESRC project, Democracy Matters (DM), organised two pilot citizens’ assemblies on devolution in the Solent and South Yorkshire regions. This project won the UK Political Studies Association’s 2016 Democratic Innovations Award for its “innovative and deliberative” approach and “potential for shaping future democratic reforms and the devolution of power at local and regional level”.
The second project, Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit (CAB), provides robust evidence of the capacity of citizens’ assemblies to deal with highly controversial political issues and the importance of using attitudinal criteria in the recruitment of participants alongside more traditional socio-demographic criteria to avoid skewing membership.
In 2021, Smith was appointed chair of the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) funded by the European Climate Foundation that aims to improve the commissioning, design, implementation and impact of climate assemblies.
Smith’s research has had direct impact on the design and implementation of citizens’ assemblies at the national and local level in the UK, on climate assemblies around the world and the world’s first permanent citizens’ dialogue adopted by the Parliament of the German-Speaking community in Belgium. His work has enhanced the capacity of the direct action movement Extinction Rebellion to articulate its demand for a citizens’ assembly and the content of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill and the Today For Tomorrow campaign.
Delivery of Citizens’ Assemblies in the UK
The Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit (CAB) pilot project, organised by Smith and colleagues, has played a critical role in the application of citizens’ assemblies in the UK at both national and local levels.
In the wake of the CAB, UK parliamentary committees commissioned two high-profile citizens’ assemblies to inform their inquiries: the Citizens’ Assembly on Social Care (CASC) and the Climate Assembly UK (CAUK). Both assemblies were delivered by the participation charity Involve. Tim Hughes, previous Director of Involve, is clear that these national CAs would not have happened without the earlier CAB. Drawing on insights from his research, Smith’s advice on organising the CAUK into sub-assemblies to deal with the complexity of climate policy was adopted in its final design. The CAUK also integrated an attitudinal criterion into its recruitment process, directly drawing from the practice of the CAB. Hughes states that the CAB provided a “proof of concept… very important for the development of Citizens’ Assemblies in the UK”.
Miriam Levin, former Head of Community Action at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS), confirms that Smith’s work was critical in obtaining government funding for, and determining the design of, the DCMS and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) Innovation in Democracy programme, which ran from November 2018 to March 2020. The funding enabled three local authorities to commission citizens’ assemblies, and Levin notes:
“The model of citizens’ assemblies as successfully demonstrated by CAB and DM formed the basis for the design of the Innovation in Democracy assemblies. We drew heavily on their best practice, including appointing independent facilitators, running the assemblies over two full weekends and paying honorariums to the participants”.
Shaping the practice of climate assemblies
In his role as the Founding Chair of the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA), Smith has established KNOCA as the “go-to” place for reliable and practical guidance on the commissioning, design, implementation and impact of climate assemblies. In its first year of operation, KNOCA has attracted over 500 members ranging from policy officials and practitioners through to NGOs, activists and academics, run a series of learning calls on climate assemblies across Europe and organised closed workshops for public officials who are in the process of delivering or considering organising assemblies. Erica Hope, Director of the European Climate Foundation’s initiative on Climate Planning and Laws, said:
“When it came to identifying the right person to chair KNOCA, every avenue we explored seemed somehow to bring us to Professor Graham Smith… so we are honoured and delighted that he accepted to play this role.”
Impact on the Design of the Permanent Citizens’ Dialogue in Belgium
The reach of Smith’s impact is evidenced by his “instrumental” role in the design of the world’s first permanent Citizens’ Dialogue based on random selection established by the Parliament of the German-speaking community of Belgium. Smith was invited to be part of a three-day international expert design workshop that had been commissioned by the Parliament to consider how best to integrate citizens’ assemblies into its work. The proposal generated by the expert design team was adopted unanimously by Parliament without revision and was implemented later that year.
The Citizens’ Dialogue is constituted by a permanent Citizens’ Council of 24 randomly selected citizens who have taken part in previous citizens’ assemblies. Its membership is regularly rotated with eight members being replaced every six months. The Council takes on the agenda-setting role, taking evidence from parliament, government and civil society and deciding independently on which issues should then be scrutinised by citizens’ assemblies. Parliament and government are required to respond publicly to recommendations from assemblies within six months.
The novel design of the Ostbelgien process is widely acclaimed as a “trailblazer” in the politics of citizens’ assemblies and has received extensive international interest from publications including The Economist, which referred to the dialogue as an innovation “that Aristotle would have approved of”.
Following the success of the permanent Citizens’ Dialogue on Ostbelgien, Smith was part of the design team that advised on the structure and practices of the Assemblée Citoyenne in Paris – the first permanent citizens’ assembly in a major city – that began its work in late 2021.
Extinction Rebellion
A key demand of Extinction Rebellion (XR) is the establishment of a national citizens’ assembly on the climate and ecological emergency. XR reached out to Smith to help activists think through what this would mean in practice. Smith provided ongoing advice and support, including the organisation of three days of design workshops at the University of Westminster, where academic and practical experts in citizens’ assemblies worked with XR activists.
A member of the XRCA Working Group explains how Smith enabled XR to be clearer about its demands and expectations of the CA process:
“Before these workshops I don't think any of us had any idea of how in practice the CA for Climate and Ecological Justice was going to work… It gave us the knowledge and confidence we needed to properly communicate with a wider audience about citizens' assemblies”.
Today For Tomorrow
Smith has been instrumental in shaping the Today For Tomorrow campaign that aims to enshrine a UK Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill. Lord Bird MBE, founder of The Big Issue magazine and leader of the campaign, reached out to Smith in his position as Chair of the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development (FDSD) to help build support for the bill and to develop its content.
Drawing explicitly on his academic work, Smith proposed the incorporation of citizens’ assemblies to determine wellbeing goals and oversee the work of a UK Future Generations Commissioner. Oliver Sidorczuk, former advisor to Lord Bird, states:
“These improvements to the bill, suggested and drafted by Graham, place citizens at the heart of a new, sustainable, democratic decision-making model and would not be in the draft legislation without his guidance and expertise”.
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