Climate protection in the canton of Zurich

Randomly selected residents represent the diversity of society and jointly negotiate recommendations on political issues. These so-called citizen panels/citizen councils are becoming increasingly widespread in Switzerland. As part of the government council’s legislative goal of promoting public participation, the Canton of Zurich commissioned the ZDA (Citizens’ Council) to conduct and scientifically support such citizen panels in three Zurich municipalities.

A citizen panel on climate protection took place in each of the municipalities of Uster, Winterthur, and Thalwil between September 2021 and September 2022. The citizen panels consisted of 20-22 randomly selected residents aged 16 and older, who together represented a diverse representation of the respective population. The members of the citizen panels met over two weekends each and addressed a specific climate protection challenge at the local level. The results were presented to the municipal government, which decided on the implementation of the proposed recommendations. Further information can be found in the project reports.

The ZDA provides scientific support to the citizen panels. The study focuses on the following questions:

How are the three citizen panels embedded in the political context of the municipalities?
What conclusions do the participants from the municipalities draw from the implementation of their citizen panels?
Who wants to participate in citizen panels and why?
To what extent did the two-stage lottery process ensure the representativeness of the citizen panels?
How do the members of the citizen panels assess their participation in the process?
What effect does participation in a citizen panel have on the members?
How does the Zurich population view citizen panels as a new form of political participation?

The ZDA staff investigated these questions using qualitative and quantitative methods. The findings and results of this study are now available in the ZDA study report.