“Direct democracy” and mass politics – part 2

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Part 1 is here.

Mass politics

Mass politics is the situation in which political decisions are made by a symmetrical aggregation of the actions of a large number of individuals.

The modern electoral system is an example of a mass political system. In this case, the actions of the individuals are (1) whether to run for office, (2) advocacy, and (3) voting. The political decision made is the selection of the officials.

Another example is the “direct democracy” situation – both in its modern “popular initiative” setup or in the ancient “Athenian Assembly” setup. In this case, the individuals can (1) propose legislation, (2) advocate, and (3) vote, and the decision made is the passing of pieces of public policy.

When the agenda is set externally (by the Ephors in Sparta and to some extent by the Boule in Athens, or by the elected legislature in Oregon System referenda), then the individual actions are limited to advocacy and voting. In some cases (e.g., the Spartan assembly) advocacy by individuals is also explicitly excluded from the process.

Due to the symmetry of its decision making process, mass politics has superficial similarity to democracy – a political system in which political power is distributed equally among the members – since both terms describe situations of equality. The difference is that mass politics is defined in terms of formal equality while democracy is defined in terms of equality of actual political power.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, Participation, Sortition | 14 Comments »

Chaocracy

Posted on May 8, 2012 by peterstone

Found the following blog post recently: Random Politics and the Lords of Chaocracy.

It recommends some system called “Chaocracy,” which is discussed by Pete Carroll in a book called Psybermagick.

Apparently, “Chaocracy” is very similar to Burnheim’s “Demarchy,” although I doubt Burnheim would see his system as having much to do with chaos.

[I found the excerpt below in the Amazon preview of the book, -Yoram]
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Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | Leave a comment »

3rd Paris Sortition Conference

Posted on May 7, 2012 by keithsutherland

The third sortition conference will take place on May 24-25 at CEVIPOF, Science-Po, Paris. Programme:

Gil Delannoi, Update on the research programme
Bernard Manin, Principles of Representative Government revisited
Keith Sutherland, The triumph of election: Natural right or wrong?
Andrei Poama, Virtues and limits of judicial luck: Reasons for randomising the choice of jurors and verdicts

Programme
Registration

I’d greatly appreciate advance feedback on my own paper which challenges Manin’s central argument as to why sortition hasn’t been considered as a candidate for representative government.

Filed under: Distribution by lot, Elections, History, Juries, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Jacques Rancière on elections

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Joshua Mostafa wrote to call attention to an interview with Jacques Rancière:

Jacques Rancière was interviewed by Le novel Observateur on the French presidential election. He argues that elections, despite being touted as the height of democracy, are anti-democratic, oligarchical procedures. He does not confine his criticism to the right, or to the likely winner of the election, François Hollande, whose weak-tea, centrist version of socialism cuts no ice with the philosopher, but also to the purported champion of the left, Front de Gauche candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon: ‘A true campaign of the left would denounce the office of president itself.’

In principle and in historical origin, representation is anti-democratic. Democracy was founded on the idea of equal competence of all. The usual mode of selection for office was drawing lots… Representation is an oligarchic principle: it has always been associated with power representing not the population but the status or competence that bases its authority over that population: birth, wealth, knowledge, etc.
Read more (in French) »

Filed under: Athens, Press, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Proposal: Video Projects

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Yoram Gat

A post by Tomas Mancebo, one of the people behind Partido Azar. A translation to English follows the Spanish original.

Proyecto Videos

El punto de partida de este post es una realidad desoladora: existen videos sobre el sorteo aplicado a la política, pero son muy escasos, de dudosa calidad, con apenas reproducciones, en solo algunos idiomas, poco atractivos,… y cualquiera puede comprobarlo buscando en Youtube. El déficit es tan evidente como encomiables las exiguas iniciativas que intentan llenar este vacío.

Supongo que para EBL la difusión del sorteo es uno de los principales objetivos. EBL difunde el sorteo y lo hace con la escritura, una herramienta de comunicación tan necesaria como insuficiente. No soy de los que piensa que una imagen vale más que mil palabras. Basta pensar en un enfermo con un tumor sospechoso que visita al medico en el momento del diagnóstico definitivo: cuando el médico dice “es benigno” las lágrimas del paciente serán bien distintas de las que brotarán con un “es maligno”. Sobran las imágenes.
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Filed under: meta, Sortition | 10 Comments »

Keddie: Instead of an Elected Lords, let’s have a People’s House

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Patrick Keddie, a freelance writer, writes in Liberal Conspiracy:

The historic prospect of reforming the House of Lords, set to be announced in the Queen’s Speech on 9 May, should be exciting – yet the public is hardly enthused.

Fairly or not, politicians are currently viewed as pretty disreputable creatures and the prospect of electing even more of them is not very appealing to many.

But there is a little-discussed radical alternative; a second chamber composed of ordinary people, appointed by lottery in a manner similar to those chosen for jury service.

I came across the idea on comedian Mark Thomas’s People’s Manifesto radio show. Thomas began a tour of the UK in 2009, asking audiences to come up with their own ideas and policies which were then debated.
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Filed under: Athens, House of Lords, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Slinger: Chance for reform that is truly radical

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Yoram Gat

A letter proposing sortition for the House of Lords by John Slinger – a Labour activist – is published in the Financial Times:

The report this week of the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill has led to a tired and polarised debate, resulting in two equally unattractive options. The conservationists wish to preserve an anachronistic, undemocratic body, which nonetheless carries out its responsibility to revise legislation with aplomb due to the expertise of its members. The reformers cling to the totem of elections to bestow on the Lords some semblance of democracy, yet offer no explanation on how to manage the inevitable constitutional clash between the newly legitimate Lords and the previously supreme Commons, or how the full range of expertise would be preserved. Instead, we require radical reform accommodating the best features of both options while mitigating their inherent deficiencies. One little-discussed idea is for a system of Citizen Senators, selected by lot as with juries.
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Filed under: House of Lords, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 1 Comment »

A groundswell for sortition at the Guardian

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Polly Toynbee wrote an article in the Guardian about House of Lords reform.

The comments thread had quite a few people suggesting to appoint House of Lords members by sortition, such as:

hermionegingold

simple

scrap the current lot of decrepit aristos, religious creme de la creme & former politicians bribed to give up their seats for ‘new blood’ and have lords lotto with the people of this nation like we do with jury service.

it can’t possibly be any worse than what we have now & who knows, with ‘token’ interest taken out of the equation they might actually get things done.

stranger things have happened.

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Filed under: House of Lords, Press, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Clive Aslet: Appointment by lot for the House of Lords

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Clive Aslet writes in the Mail Online:

[E]ven the Conservatives back a largely elected chamber. They have to; democracy is the only show in town. But leaving aside the constitutional impasse that would ensue once an elected upper house started to throw its weight around, who would really want it? Our elected politicians are not exactly revered. In fact they’re reviled. The last thing we need is more of them. We need a different type of animal in the Lords – experts, great legal brains — but not appointees of the prime minister, thank you very much. It’s a conundrum. Everyone who thinks about it comes up with a different answer.

If David Cameron really believed in the Big Society, he would advocate true democratic involvement: appointment by lot. It could work like the jury system. Ordinary people serve a term as scrutineers of parliamentary legislation. You could be sure they would bring a lot more practical experience to the table than their oppos in the Commons.

Otherwise the only way forward I can see is for the Lords to revert to their origins. There are far too many Lords for the chamber to accommodate; let them fight it out.

Filed under: Elections, House of Lords, Press, Sortition | 1 Comment »

“Direct democracy” and mass politics – part 1

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Yoram Gat

The reformist idea of “direct democracy” is a recurring theme among critics of the dominant modern elections-based system of government. However, “direct democratic” systems, when considered as systems for representing popular interests, suffer from much the same problems that afflict elections-based systems.

The promise of “direct democracy”

The standard description of the Athenian democracy emphasizes the role of the Assembly. According to this description having thousands of Athenians assemble 40 times a year to discuss and vote on policy decisions was the main democratic mechanism in Athens. This institute, supposedly, distributed political power widely within the group of Athenian citizens. Wikipedia puts it this way:

It [Athens] remains a unique and intriguing experiment in direct democracy, a political system in which the people do not elect representatives to vote on their behalf but vote on legislation and executive bills in their own right.

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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Initiatives, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | 65 Comments »

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