To Restore Trust In Government, This Belgian Town Opened A Lottery That Elects 30 Random Citizens To Power. It's Working.

To Restore Trust In Government, This Belgian Town Opened A Lottery That Elects 30 Random Citizens To Power. It's Working.

To Restore Trust In Government, This Belgian Town Opened A Lottery That Elects 30 Random Citizens To Power. It's Working. In 2019, Ostbelgien, a town in Belgium with about 80,000 residents, took a gamble on a new approach to governing: The city’s parliament voted to establish a permanent Citizens’ Council and Assembly, giving randomly-selected citizens the power to make decisions. They called it, aptly, the Ostbelgien Model. “Its main objectives are providing citizens not only a permanent voice in the process of decision making but also a systematic monitoring system to ensure they are heard,” the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy writes. “Ultimately, the project seeks to increase accountability and reinvigorate the agenda-setting power of common citizens.” A meeting in Ostbelgien. Photo courtesy of Burgerdialog in Ostbelgien Now, about six years into the experiment, which was created with the express purpose of increasing trust in government, participants say it’s wo…