What Does Governing a Citizens’ Assembly Mean?: Power and contingency at the Citizens’ Convention on End of Life (CCEL)

Résumé :

Drawing on my experience as a member of the Governance Committee (GC) of the French Citizens’ Convention on End-of-Life, I show how this hybrid institutional body has been weakened by what I call a ‘grey area of governance.’ The intricate web of actors exerting decision-making power and the ambiguities of the place and role of the GC produced tensions that could have threatened the deliberative process. Yet, surprisingly, the Convention overcame the deficiencies of its governance architecture. This article suggests that the Convention’s success, in spite of its governance challenges, finds its sources in: 1) the GC’s adaptive capacity and commitment to uphold deliberative principles and 2) the citizens’ involvement in methodological choices. The process was also helped by the empathy and emotions stirred by the sensitivity of end-of-life issues.