BürgerForum 2011: German Federal President Horst Köhler initiates a citizens´ online dialogue 27. May 2010 – 17:18 by Simone Gerdesmeier

In 2008 and 2009, Zebralog conducted two very successful citizens´ online dialogues, initiated by the German Bertelsmann Stiftung und the Heinz Nixdorf Stiftung: The BürgerForum for Social Market Economy and the BürgerForum Europe. In both forums, about 350 randomly chosen citizens have been involved in an intense and focused online discussion and worked out their own political programmes, consisting of different challenges and possible solutions.

2011 we will open a new round with a new online dialogue. This time the BürgerForum found a prominent initiator: German Federal President Horst Köhler starts this project to foster citizen participation. The Bertelsmann Stiftung and Heinz Nixdorf Stiftung will act as project partners.

Participants will focus their discussion on the growing social diversity and the multicultural society. As in 2008 and 2009, the political programmes will be discussed and worked out on a specially designed online-platform, using the format BürgerAgenda (citizens´ agenda), designed by Zebralog and proved in the two former online discussions. But instead of a few hundred people, the BürgerForum 2011 will unite 10.000 German citizens. To open the dialogue for this considerably larger group of participants, the discussion process as well as the website has to undergo a few changes: First, the participants will debate in 25 local forums, whereby each region will work on their own citizens’ agenda. Afterwards, the local forums will be combined to one nationwide forum, where the participants will approve a common citizens´ agenda.

Several live events will accompany the online discussion: In January 2011, the participants of each region will meet and chose the topics for their debate. In May 2011, the approved citizens’ agenda will be presented to Federal President Köhler.