How to Democratize Policy Design at Scale

In times of polycrisis—climate change, inequality, institutional mistrust—there is no shortage of calls for more democratic policymaking. But how can we actually involve whole populations in shaping policies that affect everyone, without overwhelming the system or the citizens?

In my newly published article in Policy Design and Practice, titled “Large Scale Democratic Policy Design: Including Populations in Policy Design Processes”, I take up this challenge head-on. The piece offers a conceptual roadmap for scaling up democratic participation in policymaking, moving beyond the limits of small, elite-controlled deliberative “mini-publics” and toward a model that allows entire societies to participate in complex decision-making.

What the Article Argues

• The Problem: Participatory policy design has hit a wall. While it holds immense promise, current methods are too narrow, too small, and often tokenistic. Efforts to include the public remain stuck in formats that don’t scale.
• The Diagnosis: The core issue is the lack of scalable deliberation. Mini-publics work only in small groups. As a result, participatory processes often suffer from limited legitimacy—excluding many from input, reducing the quality of deliberation (throughput), and producing outcomes (output) that fail to carry democratic weight.
• The Proposal: We need to disaggregate deliberation into measurable elements—decisions, options, rankings, and arguments—and then structure the process so it can work at scale. Drawing from how large organizations (like party conventions) already structure complex decision-making, I propose a model in which policy design becomes a series of manageable steps—augmented by digital platforms that support delegation and trust.
• The Model: Citizens can choose to participate directly or delegate their influence to trusted “open actors”—from civil society organizations to subject-matter experts—using individualized trust storage. This maintains both agency and scalability, creating a system I call Civil Democracy.

Why This Matters

In a time of widespread frustration with existing institutions and rising polarization, the answer isn’t less democracy—it’s more effective democracy. But that requires more than good intentions: it requires new structures, new processes, and new technologies.

This article outlines one such structure—a way to enable mass participation without sacrificing depth, inclusiveness, or accountability.

If you care about democratic innovation, participatory design, or the future of governance, I hope you’ll take a look.

🔗 Read the full article (open access):
https://doi.org/10.1080/25741292.2025.2502201