Matthew Taylor

How to restore trust in politics

Shirley Islam, Matthew Taylor, Emma Hogan

Matthew Taylor and participants like Shirley Islam advocate for citizens' assemblies as a deliberative alternative to adversarial representative democracy, aiming to restore public trust through random selection and expert-guided consensus building. Data from the OECD and case studies in Ireland and Scotland demonstrate that governments implementing these recommendations see high rates of policy adoption, often transforming contentious issues like abortion and drug reform into actionable legislation. Despite initial political reluctance to cede control over outcomes, proponents argue that these assemblies provide voters with continuous agency between elections and signal a global shift toward more inclusive governance models.