A Constitutional Imperative to Implement a Citizen’s Assembly Model within US Governance

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Yoram Gat

A post by Dylan Vargas. Dylan Vargas is a Master’s Student at American University studying International Affairs Policy and Analysis. In his studies he focuses on the interplay between good governance and human rights. He has worked extensively in the Democracy space, including work in four electoral campaigns and two years with the League of Women Voters of the United States advocating for Democracy Reform. This post was written as part of a Human Rights course Vargas is taking at AU.

A Constitutional Imperative to Implement a Citizen’s Assembly Model within US Governance

Outline: The core argument of the post is that the United States should implement a Citizen’s Assembly Model to achieve a more representative and responsive form of governance, as promised by the U.S. Constitution. Current democratic mechanisms are failing to adequately reflect the diverse population they serve, leading to widespread mistrust in government institutions. The implementation of a Citizen’s Assembly — a body made up of randomly selected citizens reflecting the demographic makeup of the country — would ensure that the voices and perspectives of ordinary Americans are better represented in policy-making. This argument addresses Equality by Lot’s debates surrounding political representation, democratic legitimacy, and the crisis of public trust in government. It focuses on the US Constitution, founding documents, US polling/stats, and conversations around democratic and repressive government political theory.

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Filed under: Academia, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Allotting the deck chairs on the Titanic

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Yoram Gat

The Council of Europe, “the continent’s leading human rights organisation”, announces:

A historic milestone for deliberative democracy: Ukraine’s first-ever Citizens’ Assembly successfully launched

Kyiv, Ukraine 8 October 2024

The first weekend of Ukraine’s inaugural Citizens’ Assembly, supported by the Council of Europe, successfully concluded in Zvyahel. This historic event, the first-ever Citizens’ Assembly held under wartime conditions, marks a significant step in advancing deliberative democracy in Ukraine. The CA was organised by Zvyahel City Council with the expert, methodological and financial support of the Council of Europe project «Strengthening democratic resilience through civic participation during the war and in the post-war context in Ukraine».
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Filed under: Applications, Sortition | 1 Comment »

INSA Online Summit – October 6th

Posted on October 4, 2024 by richwbrown
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INSA Online Summit 2024

JOIN US for a 1-hour informal and interactive roundtable on the status of sortition events and activities in countries around the world.

Sunday, 6 October 2024

– Monday, 7 October in Asia & Australia – 

19:00 GMT, 20:00 Europe, 21:00 Israel, 14:00 EST (2:00 PM), 6:00 AEDT

Google Meet Joining Video Link: https://meet.google.com/eej-szev-hje

INSA is a volunteer organisation aimed at connecting pro-sortition academics, advocates, and activists around the world, to share resources and tactics and advance the theoretical understanding of sortition. www.INSA.site

You are also invited to join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/6sgnrphp6

Filed under: Academia, meeting, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Patrick Deneen on democracy, populism and sortition

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Patrick Deneen is a professor of political science at Notre Dame university. He is a fairly prominent public intellectual in US politics, popular especially among the Republican elite. His 2018 book, Why Liberalism Failed, drew quite a bit of attention.

A piece by Deneen has recently been published by the Notre Dame magazine. It is a surprisingly, even impressively, good. The heavy punches just keep coming. Here are some excerpts.

Democracy and Its Discontents

The claim that our democracy is imperiled should rightly strike fear in the souls of citizens, but it ought also to give pause to any student of politics. During most of the four decades I have studied and written about democracy, political scientists, and especially political theorists such as myself, would begin not with a claim about the relative health of democracy, but rather with a seemingly simple question: What is democracy?

Yet according to a dominant narrative among today’s academics, public intellectuals, media personalities and even many citizens, it is largely assumed that we know what democracy is. Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Books, education, Elections, History, Press, schools, Sortition | 17 Comments »

Sortition on Novara Media

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Novara Media is British media organization which publishes videos on YouTube. On August 31st it published a video in which the presenters mocked a certain UK MP. In the context of lamenting the supposed stupidity of that MP, one of the presenters, Aaron Bastani, suggested appointing the entire House of Commons by lot. Bastani seemed fairly well informed about the topic, mentioning the term sortition and the use of the mechanism in Athens.

The argument about sortition generating a more competent body is somewhat unusual since it is conventionally claimed that sortition generates a more representative but less competent body.

The video had over 17,000 views and over 200 comments, but none of the comments as far as I could see picked up on the topic.

I mean you’d be better off, you’d honestly be better off, just the first person you see on the street or in the pub and saying “Look, you’re going to be an MP for a constituency”, they will be better than Esther McVey.

By the way, that’s something I really believe. If you randomly chose individuals and you made them MPs and then they had to form parties and alliances over a period of time, I genuinely believe they would do a better job than than the House of Commons. I know people are going to get upset with me. That’s not anti-politics left populism. It’s called sortition. It used to be the basis of Athenian democracy. I’m saying that it would be superior, with women involved and no slave class. I do genuinely believe it would give us better MPs than the caliber we have right now.

Filed under: Press, Sortition, video | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

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