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G1000

G1000 emerged from a 2011 experiment in Belgium: assembling 1,000 randomly selected citizens to deliberate on major policy questions at a time when Belgian politics was in prolonged deadlock (the country had gone without a federal government for over a year). The experiment demonstrated that ordinary citizens, given structured time and balanced information, could reach substantive and considered conclusions on hard political questions.

The original G1000 has since become a model and a reference point for citizens' assembly design internationally. The Belgian experience — particularly the contrast between what the citizens produced and what the professional political class couldn't agree on — became one of the most cited early examples in the deliberative democracy literature.

The organisation continues to work on participatory processes and to document and share what was learned from the original experiment.