Citizen Legislators: Citizens on Top and Experts on Tap in the French Convention for Climate (2019–20)

In recent years, proposals for legislatures composed of ordinary citizens have attracted renewed attention. Political theorists have advanced diverse arguments for transferring legislative powers traditionally reserved for elected officials to randomly selected citizens, appealing to fairness, equality, and protection against corruption, as well as to improved representation and collective problem-solving. Yet these arguments hinge on a contested assumption: that citizens can competently legislate and resist capture by experts or interest groups. This paper examines the 2019–2020 French Citizens’ Convention for Climate (CCC) as a proof of concept for citizen lawmaking. Drawing on firsthand observations we argue that the CCC’s design effectively transformed its 150 members into de facto legislators. We develop the concept of the “citizen-legislator,” refining Mark Warren’s (2009) notion of the “citizen-representative,” and propose criteria for evaluating the quality of citizens’ legislative outputs. Finally, we identify the normative principle “citizens on top, experts on tap” as crucial to the Convention’s ability to preserve citizen autonomy and prevent capture. The CCC, we conclude, demonstrates the feasibility of involving ordinary citizens qua legislators in more inclusive and participatory forms of democratic governance.