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A popular assembly (or people's assembly) is a gathering called to address issues of importance to participants. Popular assemblies tend to be freely open to participation, in contrast to Parliament and randomly-selected citizens' assemblies, and are a form of direct democracy. Some popular assemblies consist of people invited from a location, while others invite them from a workplace, industry, educational establishment or Protest. Some are called to address a specific issue, while others have a wider scope.
The term is often used to describe gatherings that address, what participants feel are, the effects of a democratic deficit in representative democratic systems. Sometimes assemblies are created to form an alternative power structure, other times they work with other forms of government.
Local meetings are common in modern times, but usually only have a consultative role. Graham Smith argues:
Participatory budgeting, first developed in Porto Alegre, Brazil during the 1990s, uses popular assemblies as part of its direct democratic approach of allocating part of the local budget. Beginning in 2011, some protest movements such as the anti-austerity movement in Spain and Occupy movement have used assemblies of their participants to guide their decision-making. In some places like Jackson, Mississippi, popular assemblies have been vehicles for organizing local projects and campaigns. In academic writings, the devolution of power to local popular assemblies has been advocated by Murray Bookchin, Benjamin Barber and Frank M. Bryan.
The assembly was responsible for declaring war, military strategy and electing the strategoi and other officials. It had the final say on legislation and the right to call magistrates to account after their year of office. The reforms of Solon gave them responsibility for nominating and electing magistrates (), though this had been replaced by 487 BC with sortition by lot. The assembly was supervised by the boule, a council of 400–500, whose most important role was to prepare the assembly's agenda. The boule was selected by soritition, among wealthy men above the age of 30.
The oldest assembly was the Curiate Assembly, which was founded during the Kingdom. It did not operate on a one man, one vote principle. Instead, each citizen was assigned to a grouping called a curia, and majorities of participants in a majority of curiae were necessary to approve a decision, regardless on whether it was supported by an overall majority of participants.Abbott, Frank Frost (1901). A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. Elibron Classics. . Page 18-19 on Curia. Page 278, 397 on its decline The Centuriate Assembly and Tribal Assembly developed later and operated with a similar system but based on different groupings. Assemblies were dominated by the wealthier classes, as only they could devote time to participating, and they were overrepresented further by the grouping-based voting systems.
The Curiate Assembly was already largely ceremonial in the middle of the Republican period, and the late Republic saw a decline of the assemblies' roles. Their last effective powers were abolished during the Roman Empire, with the second Roman emperor, Tiberius, transferring them to the Senate. Frank Abbott attributes their decline to the transformation of the Roman state from a city-state to an empire; they no longer represented its population and representing the rest of the empire was impractical.
The retained Landsgemeinden each co-exist with an elected council and their powers and role vary according to the cantonal or local government's constitution. Landsgemeinde in Appenzell Inner Rhodes Glarus LandsgemeindeSchaub (2012), p. 309. Approving a proposal requires a Majority rule and is typically done with a show of hands. The lack of a secret ballot is controversial, including the question as to whether it is compatable with Article 21.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Proposals to reform the Landsgemeinden that have been discussed but not implemented include secret electronic ballotsUeber die Macht des kleinen Buergers. Tagblatt, 28 April 2013. http://www.tagblatt.ch/ostschweiz-am-sonntag/ostschweiz/art304158,3385183 and improving the preliminary debate.Blum, R., Köhler, B. (2006). Partizipation eund Deliberation in der Versammlungsdemokratie. Schweizer Landsgemeinden mit Kommunikationsdefiziten? In K. Imhof, R. Blum, H.Bonfadelli, & O. Jarren (ed.), Demokratie in der Mediengesellschaft (pp. 285–303).
Popular assemblies are more common at a municipal level. The vast majority of small municipalities in Switzerland feature a town meeting ( Gemeindeversammlung) as part of their governance structure, though they are rare in municipalities with a population over 10,000. As of 2020, some of the larger municipalities with a town meeting include Rapperswil-Jona, Baar and Horgen, each with a population in the 20,000-30,000 range.
Since the turn of the nineteenth century, political scientists have characterized New England's town meetings as a notable example of direct democracy. In 1831, political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville visited several townships in Massachusetts, and his remarks in the first volume of Democracy in America (1835) praise their democratic and localist culture, as did John Stuart Mill. Modern advocates of deliberative democracy, such as James Fishkin, have presented the town meeting as a setting of "empowered participation" in which thoughtful deliberation between all participating individuals can coexist with a sense of engaged citizenship and responsibility for solving local problems.
Others question their ability to represent the population. Jane Mansbridge and Donald L. Robinson have argued that town meetings in Vermont and Massachusetts feature extremely low turnout in part because they last for a full working day, thus overrepresentating seniors and non-working residents in the meetings.
Mansbridge also notes differences in participation on the basis of education and class when conflicts arise, writing that "the face-to-face assembly lets those who have no trouble speaking defend their interests; it does not give the average citizen comparable protection." Feminist critics have also identified mixed results in town meetings. While women's rates of attendance at town meetings was nearly equal relative to men's, their participation in discussion relative to men declined as the size of the town increased.
The similarly named town hall meeting, where politicians meet with their constituents and discuss issues, is named after and meant to resemble the town meeting.
After closure, the Chilvert printing press was occupied by workers who organised through an assembly. Within weeks of being reopened as a workers cooperative Chilvert printed a book called Que son las Asembleas Populares? or What are the Popular Assemblies?, a collection of articles written by renowned intellectuals Miguel Bonasso, Stella Calloni and Rafael Bielsa as well as workers and participants in the assemblies.
As with other workplaces, the print factory was saved from closure by the actions of a popular assembly. The military and police were blocked from entering the factory after the popular assembly of Pompeya called on barrio residents to protect the workplace. Individual police officers expressed their support for the workers and the popular assembly and successfully petitioned the judge to rescind his order to seize the factory.
The assemblies movement is reported to have spiked in power rapidly and fallen from any major significance within months. It is reported that Grigera summing up his analysis of the asambleas states
no matter how progressive or "advanced" the social relationships, forms of decision-making and activities of asambleas are said to be, their small scale, lack of influence and flawed coordination between themselves and other movements render this movement unable to overcome very narrow limitations.
Elsewhere in Mexico, the town of Cherán saw armed citizens kick out the corrupt police, drug cartels, and mayor in 2011. Since then they have adopted a system of popular assemblies to govern the town, which is somewhat independent of the central government.
Participants in the assembly typically enjoyed their experience at the GAs, especially in the first month of the protests, though in later months some but not all participants expressed disillusionment. Anthropologist David Graeber has suggested the use of assemblies was a key reason why the Occupy movement gained momentum, in contrast to many other attempts to start a movement in the aftermath of the Great Recession, which used more standard methods of organization but which all failed to get off the ground.
There has been some criticism of the model, especially concerning the time it takes to form consensus about specific demands. The specific forms used at the Occupy London have been criticized for the fact that they allow even a single participant to block consensus, in contrast to GAs in the United States where some require a minimum of 10% of participants to block a motion in order to prevent it being passed. Nathan Schneider has suggested that an issue with assemblies is that to some extent they are incompatible with traditional political groups such as parties, unions and civil society NGOs – which is problematic as they need to liaise with these groups to get their message actualized.
"Throw them all out" Argentina's grassroots rebellion| Roger Burbach| Spotlight|2 July 2002
The Argentine rebellion| Roger Burbach| Spotlight|21 February 2002
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