The G1000 was a large-scale citizen's conference that took place in Belgium in 2011. 1000 citizens participated in a 3-stage event to discuss various issues facing the country and draft a list of proposed solutions. The event's organizers were well-versed in Deliberative Democratic theory and implemented many of the aspects discussed by the researchers and theoreticians.
Contents
Background
Belgian Parliamentary Crisis
In 2011, a parliamentary impasse left Belgium with no functioning government for over 500 days. The political crisis left the country on edge with tensions between the two linguistic groups (the Dutch-speaking Flemish community and the French-speaking Walloons). In addition, there was a general feeling of powerlessness due to the impasse and dysfunctional government.
A number of Belgian citizens decided to organize a platform for the citizens to participate and become more involved in politics. They believed that elected officials – due to their preoccupation with their political survival and careers – are quite conservative and lack the courage to make tough decisions as well as compromises. Rather, it is the ‘ordinary’ citizens who have more liberty to attempt innovative solutions. The organizers believed that they could utilize the internet to develop a project that would “breathe new life” into the Belgian democracy. The organizers sought not to create an alternative to the elected government and parliament, but rather to develop a new citizen platform to complement the existing political structures.
Preparations and Planning
Recruitment
Deliberation
First Stage
Public Agenda Setting The first stage was the Public Agenda Setting. During this phase, all citizens were invited to submit issues of public concern to an online database. A list of the top 25 issues submitted was then compiled by the organizers. The public was then invited again to vote on these 25 issues to decide which were of the prime importance to discuss and solve. With the votes counted, the top three issues were: social security, immigration and the redistribution of wealth . These three issues would form the public agenda for the initiative.