The Democratic Odyssey

The Democratic Odyssey was conceived and launched as a long-term journey through the rugged landscape of democratic contemporary pathologies. As a decentralised, collaborative and transparent exercise of crowdsourcing and co-creation, it seeks to bring together as many contributors as possible in different capacities and with different roles:

The Flotilla

The Odyssey’s flotilla will be the backbone of the ongoing campaign, the subject and object of this democratic experiment. This community is open to all who want to be involved in the long-term campaign for a permanent citizens’ assembly. By joining, you will become a ‘friend of the assembly’, and will automatically receive updates about the Odyssey’s publications, events, and the status of the overall campaign. Please register via this link to join the flotilla and contribute to the further, future evolution of this experiment, as well as publicly pledge support for a People’s Assembly for Europe.

The Constituent Network

A collective of organisations and individuals known as the Constituent Network, self-selected from the Flotilla based on their active participation, contributes directly to the project’s design, conduct and its unfolding over time. This is an open network with no gatekeeping: anyone who wants to join can. The Constituent Network is a network of networks joined amongst others by the EUI-STG Democracy Forum, an inter-institutional, inter-disciplinary community of over 150 stakeholders active in the field of democracy at the EU level. The Constituent Network plays a pivotal role in:

1. The co-design of the EU permanent citizens’ assembly’ proof of concept, by contributing ideas and sharing lessons learned from other transnational citizens assemblies to the Odyssey’ Modular Approach;
2. Setting the agenda of the Pilot Assembly in Athens in Autumn 2024: the Constituent Network will pre-select a set of topics of policy relevance for the EU to be presented to citizens, and help define the Assembly’s agenda based on citizens’ selected topic.
3. Support the identification of knowledge needs and knowledge transfers, advise on accessible information materials and transparent communication to participants of the Pilot Assembly;
4. The sustainable development and expansion of the flotilla to all relevant local, national, and European stakeholders;
5. Supporting the dissemination, outreach and advocacy campaign of the project, Pilot Assembly and its proposed recommendations.

Do you want to be part of our Constituent Network?
Contact us: democraticodyssey@eui.eu

The consortium

The European University Institute’s STG Transnational Democracy Programme launched the Odyssey in 2022 as the project’s lead scientific coordinators, a role they continue to fulfil. Particip’Action, the deliberative practitioners, are overseeing co-design, budgeting and facilitating for the 2024 assembly. The ECI Campaign, is the transnational civil society organization that is building bridges with grassroots networks and exploring how to best connect randomly selected Citizens’ Assemblies with the ECI. The Citizens Takeover Europe coalition of over 60 civil society organisations is involved in co-designing the process and advocacy. The Democracy and Culture Foundation, based in Athens, contributes expertise in arts, technology and communications. See the entire list of consortium members at the bottom of this website.