Sortition
A special feature of the Citizens' Council "Germany's role in the world" is the drawing of lots: Randomly selected people talk about urgent political issues. This has several advantages:
1. The people drawn by lot leave their usual filter bubbles and come into contact with others with whom they would otherwise be unlikely to enter into conversation.
2. It is not only the "usual suspects", i.e. people who are politically active anyway and are predominantly highly educated, who sit together.
3. At the Citizens' Council "Germany's Role in the World", political questions beyond questions of power are discussed. The composition of the Citizens' Council is so diverse due to the random selection that party or organizational interests do not play a role here, but each person simply speaks for themselves.
The drawing of lots was computer-assisted and took place in two steps: First, communities were drawn at random. Then people were also drawn at random from their residents' register. Those drawn in this way were invited to participate in the citizens' council. A group of 160 people will be assembled from the applications following the invitations. This group will represent as realistic a picture of the population as possible in terms of age, gender, level of education, place of residence, size of community and migration background.