Advocates of citizens’ assemblies will tell you that ordinary citizens, when given enough time and information, can come up with solutions that rival those of professional policymakers — and restore their faith in the democratic process while doing so. The assembly that I attended was about waste management, but similar gatherings have debated issues as contentious as climate policy, abortion laws and tech privacy.

These assemblies are gathering momentum in Europe and, more recently, in the United States. The movement’s unlikely hub is Belgium, a country better known for its deep political dysfunction. Brussels, where I grew up and now live, has 19 mayors from at least seven different political parties; it took more than 600 days (and many protests) for the region to form a government after the last elections in 2024.

But Belgium is also one of the first countries to make citizens’ assemblies a permanent feature of government: In Ostbelgien, the German-speaking region of the country, the parliament has included a “citizens’ council” since 2019. In Brussels, the parliament regularly hosts assemblies like the one I attended, with 45 citizens and 15 MPs who together recommend new policies on topics like homelessness and crisis management. In May, a bipartisan cohort of representatives from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Washington, and Utah visited Brussels to learn about the model.

Could citizens’ assemblies replace electoral politics? For some, that is the long-term goal. In her book Politics without Politicians, Hélène Landemore, a professor of political science at Yale, makes the case for a political system entirely made of a rotating cast of citizens.

But even the regions that have adopted citizens’ assemblies are a long way off from achieving Landemore’s vision. Assemblies rely on the backing of political institutions for funding and legitimacy, and the recommendations that result from them are usually not binding: It is up to elected politicians to decide whether to adopt them.

To most advocates I interviewed, this is a feature not a bug. The idea is to give people a greater voice in the political system, not dismantle it entirely. Many also argue that citizens’ assemblies strengthen democracy regardless of whether their recommendations become law. They claim that people who feel they are participating in the political process via assemblies — or know that their friends, neighbors or colleagues are doing so — will be less likely to vote for extremist parties because they will feel heard by elected officials. The distrust between voters and politicians will narrow. Citizens’ assemblies can also build a sense of community, helping people feel more connected to those who share their neighborhood or city. “What I can see on the ground is that people are craving community,” said Phil Lindsay, who directs the democracy innovation program at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. He sees the U.S. as fertile ground for assemblies. “It’s less about the policy outcomes than it is about this desire to be in person or connect with people and not feel alienated.”