Testing Public Trust and Institutional Legitimacy

Join New America’s Political Reform program, Columbia World Projects, and FIDE - North America on January 23rd from 11 am to 12 pm EST for a panel discussion with international experts on the health of representative democracies. As public confidence in elected representatives reaches historic lows, this conversation will highlight measures to restore trust, with a focus on the role of citizens’ assemblies, a proven democratic innovation that enhances mutual trust and promotes social cohesion and belonging amid growing polarization.

Featured Panelists:

Ollin Pérez-Raynaud, Policy Analyst, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Peter MacLeod, Founder and Principal, MASS LBP

Moderator:

Marjan Ehsassi, Executive Director, FIDE - North America

This discussion will draw on insights from the newly released OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions – 2024 Results, a landmark study conducted across 30 OECD countries in 2023. The report highlights the pivotal role of participatory and deliberative democracy in building public trust. Key findings reveal that citizens who feel they have a voice in government decisions are three times more likely to trust their national government (69%) compared to those who do not feel heard (22%).

Panelists will examine how processes, like citizens’ assemblies, can help address long-term issues. With only 37% of respondents from the OECD survey believing their government fairly balances the interests of different generations, and around 40% expressing confidence in their government's capacity to regulate new technologies or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the conversation will focus on how deliberative processes and citizen engagement can close these trust gaps.

This event is part of a series in collaboration with Columbia World Projects and FIDE - North America, aimed at uncovering the opportunities and challenges of implementing citizens’ assemblies in the United States. These virtual discussions with leading researchers and civic practitioners offer students and practitioners of deliberative democracy and all those interested in strengthening democratic practice insights into the transformative potential and limits of this increasingly popular form of deliberative decision-making.