CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Helm, Melanie |
|---|---|
| Title | Deliberative Democracy: The Case of the Austrian Climate Citizens Assembly |
| Summary | In recent years there has been a lot of scholarly-, and political attention to deliberative mini-publics in the context of climate politics. Many democratic states are facing a crisis of democracy that holds them incapable to impose a climate plan that reduces emissions sufficiently to meet the legally binding treaty of the Paris Agreement. Deliberative democracy is discussed as a promising concept in academic literature in helping to overcome the democratic and climate crises. Deliberative democracy has the quality of linking scientific knowledge with citizens’ values and policymaking. In this thesis, I discuss the potential of climate citizens’ assemblies focusing on the Austrian “Klimarat”, and applying the frameworks of good deliberation by Smith (2009), Fishkin (2018), and the Oxford Deliberative Handbook (Bächtiger et al. 2018). I argue that the Klimarat had significant limitations in representativeness, time, neutrality, and decision-making and propose how these weaknesses can be overcome in future climate citizens assemblies to meet the standards of good deliberation, and thereby contribute to overcoming the democratic and climate crises. |
| Supervisor | Matthijs Boogards |
| Department | Undergraduate Studies BA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/helm_melanie.pdf |
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