Nordic Deliberation
What is Nordic Deliberation?
Deliberative democracy in the Nordics is in a very special place.
The Nordic democracies top in robustness when you look at international democracy metrics. Parallels in democratic systems and culture as well as welfare models provide a common basis for robust democracies. At the same time, Nordic societies face complex challenges and democracies are experiencing declining trust and participation.
This development has given way to a rapid growth of deliberative democracy and democracy innovation in the Nordics and the rest of the world.
Therefore, four leading Nordic democracy actors have joined forces to strengthen Nordic democracies and take responsibility for continuing the rapid development of deliberative democracy. The goal is to reduce the gap between citizens and the political system, ensure robust and vibrant democracies, and accelerate the Nordic deliberative wave for a better democratic future.
Nordic Deliberation will support three things in particular:
1. that large-scale deliberative projects have a place to be developed,
2. that both the private and public democracy sector gain greater capacity, and
3. that a methodological best practice knowledge bank for the organization, design, facilitation and impact of deliberative democracy in the Nordic context can be compiled.
Nordic Deliberation is founded by We Do Democracy in Denmark, Sitra in Finland, Digidem Lab in Sweden and SoCentral in Norway. Read more about the founding partners below.
Join the movement
The field of democracy is gaining momentum these days. With Nordic Deliberation, we have a common Nordic platform for this development.
Our society faces complex challenges and declining trust and participation in democracy. The purpose of Nordic Deliberation is to strengthen the implementation of deliberative democracy in the Nordic countries with the ambition of empowering citizens in their own lives and environments. In collaboration with researchers, we will show how such processes can strengthen and complement our representative democracies.
– Zakia Elvang, partner at We Do Democracy.
Selected results
Since its founding, Nordic Deliberation has put the Nordics on the map as a deliberative beacon. Here are some of the program’s achievements so far.
We have created an international learning space with Nordic Deliberation Learning Calls, where we invite collaborators and the curious to participate in thematic conversations about democratic innovation. Read about the very first learning call here.
We set new standards and open doors for cross-regional democracy collaborations by driving a focused initiative at the annual Democracy R&D conference.
We lead the way and refine methodology by collaborating on large-scale deliberative processes such as the Norwegian citizen panels National People’s Panel on Sustainable Consumption and The Citizen Assembly for Norway’s Future.
Founding partners
Sitra is the Finnish Innovation Fund, which works independently on foresight and promoting qualitative and quantitative economic growth. Sitra works with three strategic goals: sustainability solutions, a fair data economy and democracy and participation. Sitra is responsible for numerous high-impact innovation projects.
Contact:
Project Manager Hannu-Pekka Ikäheimo, hannu-pekka.ikaheimo@sitra.fi, Specialist Onni Pekonen, onni.pekonen@sitra.fi
DigidemLab is a worker-owned cooperative that designs and develops methods for political and democratic innovation. They are passionate about participatory democracy and support practices that empower people to influence the decisions that affect their lives.
Contact:
Jonas Linde, jonas@digidemlab.se
SoCentral is a non-profit company founded in 2012 that works with municipalities, businesses and citizens to develop a more sustainable society. SoCentral facilitates and drives collaborative projects with the aim of creating concrete examples of how we can improve society through better resource utilization. Since 2020, democratic innovation has been an area of special interest for SoCentral. They have conducted citizen assemblies in Norway and, in collaboration with researchers, have shown how such processes can strengthen and complement our representative democracy.
Contact:
Partner, Cathrine Skar, cathrine@socentral.no
We Do Democracy is a social-economic enterprise and a leader in Denmark within democratic innovation and deliberative democracy. WDD has designed and facilitated 20+ citizen gatherings and worked internationally as expert advisors to top leaders in the public and private sector. WDD is also co-founder of Copenhagen’s democracy hub, Democracy Garage, and the training concept Democracy Fitness.
Contact:
Managing partner, Zakia Elvang,
zakia@wedodemocracy.dk
NEW & NEXT
Nordic Deliberation Learning Call
On June 4th, we held the very first Nordic Deliberation Learning Call – an open invitation to come and hear about three Nordic examples of one of many exciting developments in deliberation: citizen gatherings outside the public sector.