Taking Stock of a Field in Motion: Democracy R&D Releases The Year in Deliberation 2025

The Year in Deliberation 2025, published by Democracy R&D — the largest global network dedicated to deliberative democracy, with members across 58 countries — offers a comprehensive annual state-of-the-field report examining the most significant trends, cases, and challenges shaping citizens' assemblies and deliberative practice worldwide. The report explores five practitioner-identified trends, including the role of AI in deliberation, the connection between deliberative processes and democratic resilience, expanding representation across marginalized communities, deliberation beyond government contexts, and the sustainability of funding in an era of cuts. Grounded in 13 expert interviews and 16 field-advancing case studies — including a landmark U.S. example in Fort Collins, Colorado — the report offers both analytical depth and actionable insight for practitioners navigating a rapidly evolving field. This publication directly serves NCDD's mission by providing the dialogue and deliberation community with an authoritative, globally informed resource for understanding where the field stands and what it must do next.

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What does the deliberative democracy field look like at a moment of political pressure, technological disruption, and constrained resources? Democracy R&D — the largest global network dedicated to deliberative democracy and democratic innovation, with 110 organizational members and more than 300 practitioners, researchers, and advocates across 58 countries — offers a timely answer in its second annual state-of-the-field report, The Year in Deliberation 2025. Authored by Ieva Česnulaitytė, Felipe Rey, Santiago Niño-Aguilar, Paula Pérez, and Pablo Trujillo, the report synthesizes contributions from across the network to produce a rich, practitioner-oriented portrait of where deliberative democracy stands and where it is headed.

The report identifies five cross-cutting trends shaping the field: the contested role of artificial intelligence in deliberative processes; deliberation's contribution to democratic resilience at a time of global democratic decline; the expansion of representation to include children, indigenous communities, and even more-than-human interests; deliberation's growing presence beyond government in cooperatives, universities, and cultural institutions; and the urgent challenge of funding sustainability as public investment in democracy work contracts. Each trend is explored through in-depth interviews with practitioners and researchers working directly on these questions — including Jane Mansbridge of Harvard Kennedy School on democratic legitimacy, Peter MacLeod of MASS LBP on keeping deliberation human, and Marcella Nery of Delibera Brasil on the Amazon Climate Assemblies. The report also features 16 field-advancing case studies spanning five continents, from Lithuania's first citizens' assembly to the Hughes Civic Assembly in Fort Collins, Colorado, whose recommendations were incorporated into a binding ballot measure approved by voters in November 2025.

​For dialogue and deliberation practitioners in the United States and beyond, The Year in Deliberation 2025 is more than a recap — it is a field map. It surfaces the questions the community is actively wrestling with: How do we sustain this work financially? Who still isn't at the table? What does responsible experimentation with AI look like? How do we demonstrate impact in ways that funders can see and decision-makers can act on? The report's breadth and practitioner grounding make it an essential resource for anyone working to advance deliberative practice in their context, and a compelling entry point for colleagues new to the field. Read the full report and explore the Democracy R&D network's work at https://democracyrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ARTEFINAL-INFORME-DEMOCRACY2026-v5.pdf.