Saarland should keep using sortition

Structural change in Saarland is a question of jobs, industry and energy. But in the view of 852 randomly selected Saarland residents, it is also about how political decisions should be made in the future and how citizens should be involved. After 19 citizen dialogues, the participants therefore presented not only proposals on skilled labour shortages, transport and healthcare. A substantial part of their recommendations addresses democracy itself.

The citizens want further citizens’ assemblies, a permanent citizens’ body on structural change, more referendums and surveys – and, above all, binding rules governing what happens to the results after a participation process. Recommendations should not simply disappear into a drawer. Their progress should be publicly trackable, if necessary using a traffic-light system: green for implemented, yellow for under review, red for not feasible.

At the start of the dialogue series, Minister-President Anke Rehlinger (SPD) described its ambition as follows: “The citizen dialogues provide space for exchange, new ideas and joint action.” Structural change, she said, was a major task that the state needed to tackle together.

852 people from all 52 municipalities

The process began in November 2025. Citizens were randomly selected from all 52 municipalities in Saarland. Gender, age, educational attainment and place of residence were taken into account in the composition of the groups. Ultimately, 852 people took part. Six events were held online and 13 in person across the five districts and the Saarbrücken Regional Association.

The political decision-makers were not merely the recipients of a paper produced at the end of the process. Rehlinger or the government’s commissioner for structural change opened every event. District administrators and the director of the Saarbrücken Regional Association, or their representatives, joined some of the meetings. The randomly selected citizens then discussed their main concerns for state and district politics.

The process was organised and moderated by the Berlin-based nexus Institute. Its original concept envisaged online opening sessions in which participants could contribute their experiences and concerns and set priorities themselves. The subsequent meetings were intended to turn these into concrete proposals.

Not just participating – but shaping participation

As the process progressed, attention increasingly turned to participation itself. Alexander Brehm, who accompanied the project at the State Chancellery, said he had been impressed by the randomly selected participants. Their discussions had made him question the widespread diagnosis of political disengagement. People had exchanged views “without the filter-bubble perspective” and weighed possible solutions together. His conclusion: “That is why we need to look for new forms of participation.”

The resulting recommendations are unusually specific. First, citizens recommend that participation should not begin only once conflicts have already escalated. It should take place early and regularly and become a reliable part of the relationship between citizens, politics and public administration. Depending on the issue, processes could be held in person, online or in a combination of the two.

At the same time, it should not always be the same politically active minority whose voices are heard. Participation processes should take different life circumstances into account, remove barriers to access and make particular efforts to reach young people, people with a migration background and groups that have so far participated relatively little.

Structural change is about more than citizen participation

The recommendations, however, are not limited to the future of citizen participation. Altogether, the participants formulated 34 recommendations across ten thematic areas. Among other things, they call for stronger support for skilled trades, investment in new and future-oriented industries, measures to attract and retain skilled workers in Saarland, and improvements in education and career guidance. For the energy transition, they recommend a faster expansion of renewable energy and greater certainty for long-term planning. Other proposals include better public transport and cycling infrastructure, affordable housing and more vibrant town centres, as well as improved healthcare and long-term care – particularly in rural areas.

The outcome therefore extends far beyond a discussion about participation processes. The citizens set out a broad vision of how Saarland should respond to economic and social change. Yet the fact that three of the ten thematic areas explicitly address citizen participation shows the particular importance participants attached to the question of how such political changes should be discussed collectively in the future.

Citizens’ assemblies should continue

One of the clearest recommendations concerns further citizens’ assemblies. Citizens should come together in them “to develop and deepen their ideas”. This is not conceived as an open-ended public meeting. Participants explicitly call for moderated discussions: both the full assembly and the small-group work should be facilitated. Citizens should also be involved in choosing the topics.

Alongside this is an even more far-reaching proposal: a permanent citizens’ body on structural change. Its membership should rotate at regular intervals. The body should complement scientific advice to policymakers and explicitly be “integrated into political processes”.

The recommendation intersects with a debate already taking place elsewhere in Saarland. In 2025, the state parliament convened its first state-wide Citizens’ Assembly on climate action. Following its evaluation, State Parliament President Heike Winzent argued for further development of the instrument. Among the ideas she put forward were holding citizens’ assemblies regularly and establishing a permanent citizen dialogue modelled on the system in East Belgium. The evaluation, she said, had produced “good to very good feedback” on selection, organisation, facilitation and results.

“I would like to see several citizens’ assemblies”

Participants in Saarland’s first state-wide citizens’ assembly expressed similar views. “I would like to see several citizens’ assemblies, on different topics,” participant Susanne Mohns said after the Climate Citizens’ Assembly. Spokesperson Jessica Rech highlighted the mix of generations and life circumstances, saying that “the atmosphere and cooperation in the groups were great”.

These comments came not from the citizen dialogues on structural change, but from the parallel Climate Citizens’ Assembly organised by the state parliament. They nevertheless show that calls for further randomly selected bodies have emerged from two separate participation processes in Saarland: while participants in the Climate Citizens’ Assembly spoke in favour of further citizens’ assemblies, the structural-change dialogues have now made their continuation one of their formal recommendations.

For those organising the structural-change dialogues, this perspective had been part of the mandate from the outset. The nexus Institute described the aim of the process as developing concrete recommendations for state policymakers as well as approaches for the future of citizen participation in Saarland.

Eight citizens finalise the recommendations

The way the final recommendations were produced is also noteworthy. The work did not end after the final regional citizen dialogue on 23 June. Eight volunteers from among the participants met for two additional editorial sessions on 9 July and 10 August. They revised and finalised the proposals that had previously been jointly developed and assessed.

Brehm sees this as a distinctive feature of the process: citizens did not merely express their views at individual meetings but continued developing the recommendations over several months. Participation therefore did not end “with the discussion”; citizens were subsequently able to discuss their recommendations directly with representatives from politics, public administration and other fields.

On 26 September, the completed recommendations were presented to Rehlinger at a final conference at the Lokschuppen in Dillingen. Citizens also met representatives from politics, public administration, business and civil society organisations.

A traffic light to prevent recommendations from disappearing

Perhaps the most consequential recommendation concerns not the selection or design of future participation processes but their political consequences. Participants demand clear feedback on what happens to their proposals. Results should be systematically reviewed by the relevant experts, measures implemented wherever possible and progress made publicly visible.

They propose a simple mechanism for doing so: a traffic-light system. Green means implemented, yellow means under review and red means that implementation is not possible. If a recommendation cannot be put into practice, the reasons should be explained transparently – for example, because of legal or financial constraints. A designated contact person should also be responsible for following up on the participation process and its results.

The citizens are thus setting a condition for credible participation: it is not enough for politicians simply to listen. It must also be possible to see what effect that listening has. The preface to their recommendations therefore states that citizens’ contributions should be “reviewed in a binding and transparent manner” and implemented wherever possible.

Now it is up to the state government

At the final event, Rehlinger made clear that not every request could be fulfilled. According to the available report, the recommendations are now to be examined by the responsible ministries to determine whether they can be implemented. The Minister-President described the dialogue series as “enriching” and announced further forms of citizen participation for the coming years. She summed up her experience with the randomly selected participants in particularly pointed terms: “You, as citizens, are our best social network!”

This is precisely where the real test of the process begins. The 852 participants did not merely formulate recommendations for managing structural change. They also presented the state government with a blueprint for how they want to be involved in the future: earlier, more regularly and with greater diversity, through further citizens’ assemblies and a permanent citizens’ body – accompanied by transparent accountability for what happens to citizens’ proposals.

Whether this will actually result in a permanent new participation structure remains open. But the citizens themselves have proposed a tool by which progress could be measured: green, yellow or red.