Berlin: Six parties are betting on sortition

Six parties want to strengthen citizens’ assemblies in Berlin or use them more frequently. Yet the German capital no longer needs to test whether the approach works: Berlin is one of Germany’s pioneers in the use of sortition in citizen participation.

When Berliners elect a new House of Representatives on 20 September, they will also be deciding how citizens should be involved in politics between elections. Five of the 17 parties contesting the election explicitly support citizens’ assemblies: the Greens, The Left, Volt, the ÖDP, the Animal Protection Party and the Sortition Party.

This is not a new form of participation for the city. The German Citizens’ Assembly Database has already recorded 35 processes involving randomly selected citizens in Berlin..They have dealt with issues ranging from neighbourhood development and digitalisation to climate policy, transport and the Olympic Games.

From neighbourhoods to the Climate Citizens’ Assembly

As early as 2019 and 2020, seven citizens’ assemblies were held in different neighbourhoods of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. Randomly selected residents discussed the future development of their local areas. In 2021 and 2022, they were followed by the Digital Berlin Citizens’ Panel, involving 70 participants.

The best-known example is the Berlin Climate Citizens’ Assembly of 2022. One hundred randomly selected Berliners from all twelve boroughs met for nine sessions to discuss transport, buildings and energy. They adopted 47 recommendations. According to the Senate, 42 of the 47 proposals were incorporated, either in full or in part, into the updated version of Berlin’s Energy and Climate Protection Programme (BEK 2030). The catch is that the programme was never formally adopted.

In 2024, the New Berliners’ Jury followed. Twenty-six people who had moved to Berlin since 2015 from Syria, Morocco, Iran, Afghanistan and Ukraine held multilingual discussions about sustainable transport policy. The process specifically explored ways of reaching people who are rarely represented in conventional participation processes.

Sortition is also being used in 2026. A randomly selected citizens’ forum and youth forum developed recommendations for Berlin’s bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The Greens want citizens’ assemblies in neighbourhoods

The Greens explicitly embrace this form of participation. “We support citizens’ assemblies,” their election manifesto states. Randomly selected Berliners should deliberate “on specific issues at neighbourhood or state level”, receive information from experts and subsequently develop recommendations for public and parliamentary debate.

The Greens therefore want to expand an existing Berlin practice. Their manifesto does not, however, provide for an obligation on the House of Representatives to respond to the recommendations.

The Left considers giving citizens’ assemblies a permanent place

The Left also wants to strengthen randomly selected citizens’ assemblies. “We want to link direct-democratic procedures more closely with instruments of citizen participation, such as sortition-based residents’ councils,” the party states in its manifesto.

On climate policy, it wants to strengthen “randomly selected citizens’ assemblies or participatory budgeting”. The party goes further by proposing that a possible reform of Berlin’s constitution should examine “citizens’ participation rights through citizens’ assemblies and participatory budgeting”.

The Left is therefore raising the question of whether citizens’ assemblies should no longer be convened only on an ad hoc basis, but be given a permanent place in Berlin’s democratic system.

Volt wants regular citizens’ assemblies

Volt provides the most detailed proposals. The party wants citizens’ assemblies to be held regularly. Their members should be selected by lot and reflect Berlin’s population as closely as possible. Politicians and the administration should be required to consider their recommendations and publicly explain how they intend to respond.

People without German citizenship should also be eligible to participate. Volt wants to enable “international fellow citizens resident in Berlin to participate in Berlin-wide citizens’ assemblies (selected by lot)”.

The party is thereby taking up one of the lessons of the New Berliners’ Council: participation through sortition does not have to be restricted to German citizens.

Animal Protection Party calls for another Climate Citizens’ Assembly

The Animal Protection Party also calls for “citizens’ and future councils as an advisory instrument”. Before such a process begins, it should be determined how its results will subsequently be handled. Its recommendations should receive mandatory consideration in the House of Representatives.

The party additionally proposes a Climate Citizens’ Assembly for Berlin. But Berlin already held one in 2022. The proposal therefore amounts to creating another Climate Citizens’ Assembly. It would develop recommendations on how Berlin could become climate-neutral by 2035.

Given the experience of 2022, an interesting question would be whether a second Climate Citizens’ Assembly should develop an entirely new set of recommendations or also examine what has happened to the 47 proposals made by its predecessor.

The ÖDP also backs sortition

The ÖDP likewise calls for the introduction of citizens’ assemblies. Their members should not be elected but randomly selected.

The word “introduction”, however, fits Berlin’s reality only to a limited extent. The city no longer needs to introduce the method. The question is whether citizens’ assemblies should in future be used regularly and according to established rules.

Sortition Party wants to give sortition more power

The Sortition Party occupies a unique position. It is standing for election to the district councils in Steglitz-Zehlendorf and Treptow-Köpenick, and has made citizens’ assemblies the cornerstone of its manifesto.

“To this end, we advocate the broad and diverse use of randomly selected citizens’ assemblies,” its Berlin programme states. The party wants to go well beyond advisory citizens’ assemblies. In the long term, randomly selected citizens should be given political decision-making powers. In Berlin, the party is calling for citizens’ assemblies on major issues such as housing.

SPD, CDU and FDP stop short of supporting citizens’ assemblies

Just as noteworthy are the parties missing from the list of supporters. The SPD promises greater public participation and new ways for citizens to submit proposals to policymakers. But its election manifesto does not call for randomly selected citizens’ assemblies.

The FDP also discusses citizen participation but does not make sortition part of its proposals. Nor do the CDU, AfD or BSW explicitly call for citizens’ assemblies.

That does not necessarily mean these parties oppose individual citizens’ assemblies. But they are not promising Berliners an expansion of the instrument during the next parliamentary term.

No corresponding proposal can be found in the programmes of the DKP, Die PARTEI or SGP either. Some of the other smaller parties have not published separate comprehensive manifestos for the 2026 election or refer instead to existing party programmes.

Berlin no longer needs to test sortition

The dividing line is therefore different from what it might have been only a few years ago. The Greens, The Left, Volt, the ÖDP, the Animal Protection Party and the Sortition Party explicitly want to strengthen citizens’ assemblies or use them more frequently. The other parties do not make them part of their electoral offer.

Berlin now has experience with randomly selected participation at state, borough and neighbourhood level. It has held one-off citizens’ assemblies, multilingual processes and, more recently, even established an advisory body designed to operate for several years.

The question is therefore no longer whether randomly selected citizen participation can work in a city of millions. It is what place it should have in Berlin’s democracy: should citizens’ assemblies be convened only occasionally for selected issues, or regularly? Should the Senate and House of Representatives be required to respond to their recommendations? Should people without German citizenship be routinely eligible to participate? And should citizens’ assemblies even be anchored in Berlin’s constitution?

Six parties offer different answers to these questions. The others largely leave them open. Berlin does not need to invent citizens’ assemblies. After the election, the question will be what the city chooses to make of the experience it has already gained.

Note: The image accompanying this article was generated by AI.