Democratic Innovations as a Response to Autocratization in Southeast Europe: The Role of Citizens' Assemblies

Countries in Southeast Europe, particularly EU candidate countries, have been experiencing democratic stagnation and backsliding at a time when democratization should be advancing. As EU enlargement becomes a more prominent topic, new processes aimed at enhancing democratic governance, such as democratic innovations, may offer a way forward. In particular, citizens’ assemblies, which follow principles emphasizing deliberation, sortition, and learning, provide citizens with a meaningful role in policymaking. This paper examines the potential of citizens’ assemblies to strengthen democratic resilience by analyzing several processes implemented across all Southeast European candidate countries. Several citizens’ assemblies have been held in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and more are planned in these countries and in Albania. While largely situated at the local level, these processes have demonstrated an ability to enhance institutional democratic resilience when they adhere to internationally accepted principles that integrate them into governance frameworks. Thus, democratic deliberative innovations show promise as a tool to counter autocratization, even in contexts of weak governance.