George A. Christos: Democracy by random selection

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Yoram Gat

The abstract of George Christos’s essay Democracy by random selection is:

Abstract: We propose a non-political parliamentary system where the parliamentarians are randomly chosen from the public, using computer technology, and there are no elections. In this ‘random parliament’, government is by ordinary people with proportional representation by all groups including women, men, workers, managers, old people, young people, and so on. The random parliament is the closest thing to true democracy that is currently attainable. Local government may be a suitable place to trial the idea of random representation.

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 20 Comments »

French Political Scientist Advocates Sortition

Posted on January 7, 2012 by tbouricius

The English version of the French web site “Books and Ideas” has an interview with Loïc Blondiaux about the increasingly apparent undemocratic nature of traditional electoral democracy. He says in part…

Elections do not always determine new directions, but they allow retroactive democratic oversight. So, in my opinion, there can be no democracy without elections, but a democracy in which, in addition to elections, random selection is practiced along with other forms of consultation and public debate, would start to resemble a real democracy.

Filed under: Press, Sortition | 18 Comments »