Minority Representation and Governance: The experience of the citizens from overseas territories in the Convention for Climate

The Citizens’ Climate Convention (2019–2021) constituted a major democratic innovation in France. While it has often been studied through the prism of sortition-based deliberative democracy, little has been said about it from the perspective of minority representation. This research analyses the role and actions of citizens from French overseas territories during the Convention. These citizens make up a socio-territorial minority insofar as French overseas territories still bear the brunt of colonial history and its inherited domination patterns. Based on participant observation and qualitative interviews, this study highlights the tensions between descriptive representativeness and effective inclusion. It shows how the Convention’s five overseas citizens formed an informal working group and developed what this article calls ‘minority governance’ strategies to defend their territories’ specific interests while overturning various forms of epistemic injustice. The interviews shed light on the conditions for successful democratic integration of minorities in deliberative settings. In doing so, the article further explores the democratizing potential and limitations of random selection from the perspective of minority politics, as well as the conditions that enable minority governance.