from the G1000 to the Ostbelgien Model

Democratic innovations are on the rise in most Western democracies. Belgium, like Australia, has always been a land of democratic innovations. Back in the 19th century, both countries were pioneers with compulsory voting, electoral formulae or the - Australian - ballot. In the beginning of the 21st century, both countries are witnessing moves in the direction of a more deliberative democracy. In Belgium, the G1000, a citizen-led experiment, set deliberative democracy on the political agenda. In this wake, all parliaments of the country have initiated deliberative mini-publics. More recently the Ostbelgien modell was fostered, that is the Parliament of the German-speaking community has enacted a permanent system of deliberative democracy that will start in September 2019: a randomly selected body of 24 citizens will work next to the existing elected parliament made of 25 MPs. These democratic innovations set the pace for a renewal of democratic dynamics in practice.

About the presenter:

Min Reuchamps is Professor of Political Science at the Université catholique de Louvain. He graduated from the Université de Liège and from Boston University. His teaching and research interests are federalism and multi-level governance, democracy and its different dimensions, relations between language(s) and politics and in particular the role of metaphors, as well as participatory and deliberative methods. He has published a dozen books on these topics and his works have appeared in several international journals. He recently co-authored a book on the G1000 experiment (https://www.crcpress.com/The-Legitimacy-of-Citizen-led-Deliberative-Demo...) and his forthcoming book is an edited volume on the variation of political metaphors. Min will be a visiting researcher at ANU from May through August 2019.