WPSA?

Posted on February 8, 2010 by peterstone

Calling all academics–is anyone planning to attend the upcoming annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) in San Francisco? It’s going to be held on April 1-3. Joel Parker (another Kleroterian) and I will be presenting papers on Saturday Afternoon (April 3), and I gather the panel still needs a discussant. Let me know if you’re interested.

Here’s the web address for the WPSA, with information about the meeting–

http://www.csus.edu/org/wpsa/mtgs.stm

And as for my WPSA paper–well, hopefully, the Kleroterians will be hearing about it shortly. (I hope to have a draft ready to circulate later this week.)

Filed under: Distribution by lot, Theory | 5 Comments »

Callenbach/Phillips Sighting

Posted on February 3, 2010 by peterstone

This blog…

http://www.madalcapital.com/elections-by-random-lottery-a-polemic-for-sortition

…makes a case for sortition by relying on Ernest Callenbach and Michael Phillips’ A Citizen Legislature (reprinted by Imprint Academic, 2008).

The Callenbach/Phillips case, which this blogger repeats, stresses the fact that a randomly selected legislature would “look like” the public at large, and therefore would “truly” represent the people. It’s the second half of that claim which leaves me a bit unsure. Is it really true that a random sample of “the people” speaks with the same voice as “the people?” Maybe, but it seems to me that it requires an argument. And the argument might prove hard to make. After all, we all would presumably justify at least some exclusions from a random draw–children and the insane are the obvious candidates–but then those exclusions mean that a random sample will no longer “look like” the population-at-large. So I think there’s more theorizing to be done here. (Of course, I do political theory for a living, so it’s not surprising that I’d say that.)

For further reflections on this topic, see the introduction I wrote to the reprinted edition of Callenbach and Phillips’ book.

Filed under: Sortition | 7 Comments »

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