Democracy Café

The purpose of Democracy Cafes is to make genuine transnational politics possible, by providing an online space in which political activists from across Europe can meet and discuss pressing political issues in an informal “Cafe” setting.

Think of it as the digital equivalent of Habermas’ coffeehouse. Democracy Cafes are meant for idea generation, not consolidation, which means that everyone’s opinion is listened to and respected.

The Democracy Cafes are online meetings with audio and video. During these meetings, the main facilitator introduces the question on the table and splits the main group into small groups of people that can discuss the question for a designated period of time. After the discussions of small group end, everyone returns to the main room and summaries are given of the outcomes of the discussions.

A World Café or Knowledge Café is a structured conversational process for knowledge sharing in which groups of people discuss a topic at several tables, with individuals switching tables periodically and getting introduced to the previous discussion at their new table by a "table host".

A café ambience is created in order to facilitate conversation. In some versions, a degree of formality is retained to make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak.

Small groups of four or five participants sit around a table and discuss an open-ended question for a structured amount of time.