Beyond the Last Word Exploring power relations in institutionalized citizen deliberation – lessons from East Belgium

With the growing use of deliberative mechanisms for citizen participation, initiatives aimed at institutionalising deliberative democracy have gained momentum in recent years. Belgium is among the first European countries to experiment with permanent deliberative mini-publics (DMPs), better known as citizens’ assemblies. As these mechanisms are widely seen as a supplement to established representative democracy, a fundamental question arises regarding how these assemblies influence and change power relations in the political decision-making process. To this end, the following article analyses power on three levels – macro, meso, and micro – in the context of the Permanent Citizen Dialogue in East Belgium, one of the most far-reaching cases of institutionalized citizen deliberation worldwide to date. The analysis also considers the spatial dimension of power, tracing how parts of the policy-making process have shifted from closed decision-making to invited participation, and in some instances to claimed influence by citizens.