Equality by lot

Sortition: Past and Present

Since ancient times sortition (random selection by lot) has been used both to distribute political office and as a general prophylactic against factionalism and corruption in societies as diverse as classical-era Athens and the Most Serene Republic of Venice. Lotteries have also been employed for the allocation of scarce goods such as social housing and school places to eliminate bias and ensure just distribution, along with drawing lots in circumstances where unpopular tasks or tragic choices are involved (as some situations are beyond rational human decision-making). More recently, developments in public opinion polling using random sampling have led to the proliferation of citizens’ assemblies selected by lot. Some activists have even proposed such bodies as an alternative to elected representatives. The Journal of Sortition benefits from an editorial board with a wide range of expertise and perspectives in this area. In this introduction to the first issue, we have invited our editors to explain why they are interested in sortition, and to outline the benefits (and pitfalls) of the recent explosion of interest in the topic.

Arash Abizadeh (Department of Political Science, McGill University). Democratic theory, as I understand it, is committed to two fundamental values: political agency (meaning people’s power and participation in political decision making) and political equality (meaning their equal political agency). I am interested in elections as a mechanism for political agency and in sortition as a mechanism for political equality; I am also interested in the tension and tradeoffs between these two fundamental democratic values (Abizadeh, 2019, 2021).

Josine Blok (Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University) & Irad Malkin (Department of History, Tel Aviv University). Our book on sortition among the ancient Greeks, Drawing Lots: From Egalitarianism to Democracy in Ancient Greece (Oxford University Press, 2024) contains some lessons for today, especially focusing on why sortition, with its emphasis on equality and mixture, is as efficient as it is just. Drawing lots was a central institution of ancient Greek society. An egalitarian mindset guided selection, procedure, distribution, and mixture by lot; after three centuries of practice (eighth through the sixth centuries BCE), drawing lots was introduced for governance, a Greek innovation that is relevant today. Drawing lots presupposes equality among participants deserving equal ‘portions’ (a significant concept) and was used for distributing land, inheritance, booty, sacrificial meat, selecting individuals, setting turns, mixing and integrating groups, and divining the will of the gods. It was a self-evident method broadly applied. Drawing lots would crystallize, exclusively, community boundaries and emphasize its sovereignty. The guiding values were equality and fairness. With the foundation of the Athenian democracy, the random distribution of equal, concrete portions moved to the abstract level of the political: isonomia (the first term by which democracy was known) now signified an equal portion of the law to each citizen. Drawing lots was introduced into oligarchies and democracies at an uneven pace and scale. The scope of the application of the lot in the classical Athenian democracy, an eye-catching case both in antiquity and today, was exceptionally wide.

Continued here.

For a free printed inspection copy of the journal go to: imprint.co.uk/sortition-hub.

Filed under: Academia, Press, Sortition |