The New Republic: There’s little doubt that sortition beats election hands down

Posted on January 29, 2025 by Yoram Gat

Roger Hallam, “a co-founder and strategic mastermind of the civil resistance groups Extinction Rebellion (often called XR) and Just Stop Oil”, and who is also serving “five years in prison for ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance'” is the protagonist of a supportive article in The New Republic. The article makes a very sympathetic presentation of Hallam’s anti-electoral and pro-sortition ideas:

Hallam calls our current moment a “pre-revolutionary period.” Such eras have arisen throughout history—if never on such a grand scale—and they unfold according to a distinct logic. One of the first casualties is moderation. “The center does not hold,” Hallam said. “You saw this before the Nazis, you saw it before the Bolsheviks, and you’re seeing it at the moment in slow motion in Western democracies.” It’s easy to miss the signs, because “the center still has institutional power,” he added. “In other words, like it’s a zombie space. It’s dead, but it hasn’t yet been pushed over by the new.”

Under such conditions, wrenching paradigm shifts are inevitable. The only question, Hallam suggested, is whether we submit to authoritarianism, as many Americans seem all too eager to do, or embrace a genuinely pro-social revolutionary alternative. While it would have been comforting to hit the snooze button with four more years of Biden-style liberalism—a sound approach in simpler times—when survival hangs in the balance, there are distinct advantages to being awake.

The centerpiece of Hallam’s plan is a radical reinvention of democracy aimed at turning elections into a historical relic. Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | 14 Comments »

Elections and Sortition: two systems, two destinies, two ways to do politics

Posted on January 26, 2025 by Nicholas Gruen

In the pretty likely event of a hung parliament after the next Australian election, the cross-bench becomes kingmaker. I’m hoping — and expecting — the crossbench to seek greater use of citizen assemblies in governing Australia. But what comes next is crucial.

Some think it would be great if a citizen assembly was held on an important issue — or two or three. Allegra Spender proposes one on tax. Others want one on housing. It would be nice to see them go ahead. But I’m sceptical they can achieve a lot.

First, on their own, citizen assemblies can be useful in lots of circumstances, but I’d say they’re most successful where they solve problems for politicians.

Ireland has become the pin-up boy for citizen assemblies

They’ve probably acquired a higher visibility in Ireland than anywhere else. And two of them have gone very well — allowing same-sex marriage and the repeal of anti-abortion provisions of the constitution. That’s because both solved problems for the politicians.

Irish citizen assemblies haven’t done noticeably better than elsewhere on the other occasions where they typically created problems for the politicians. In these circumstances, if politicians can’t ignore the citizen assembly on account of the profile it’s acquired, they cherry-pick its recommendations.

More importantly, whether or not the politicians accept their recommendations, the citizen assemblies usually contemplated are temporary and, as such, don’t aspire to leave any institutional trace. They also rehearse existing relationships in which we the people propose and the Government disposes.

I’ve gone to some lengths to propose an alternative, A standing citizen assembly effectively operating as a third house. (There’s something similar in the German-speaking part of Belgium). It is not more ‘radical’ than existing suggestions. It establishes an institution with exactly as much formal power as the other citizen assemblies just discussed. None.

The idea that it is more radical comes from what I call its greater ‘imaginative vigour’. Without proposing any change in formal power structures, it follows through on the idea that a different logic needs to enter the system.

I don’t see a citizen assembly as a tricky new ‘hack’. Nor is it that important to me that it seems more democratic. That’s a good thing, but, as we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan and as the ancient Athenians discovered during the Peloponnesian War, more democratic structures don’t always arrive at better decisions.

The more I’ve thought about representation by sampling as opposed to representation by election, the more deeply I’ve appreciated their differences.

By their nature, elections separate the governed from those who govern. That’s why Aristotle called selection by lot ‘democratic’ and elections aristocratic or oligarchic. Montesquieu and America’s founding fathers agreed.

Electoral systems are also intrinsically competitive. And the competition for votes rewards performativity, manipulation and dissimulation.

That plunges electoral democracy into deep pathologies.

Continue reading →

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Sortition Advocated in the Windsor Star

Posted on January 20, 2025 by peterstone

The Windsor Star just published an editorial by James Winter, a professor emeritus at the University of Windsor, advocating the replacement of federal elections with sortition. The reasons given are diverse, from the cost of elections to the disproportionity resulting from “first-past-the-post” elections to the self-serving nature of politicians. I am unaware of anything previously written by James Winter on this subject, but perhaps others know more.

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Citizens’ Assemblies in the Ukraine

Posted on January 20, 2025 by peterstone

In November 2024, two municipalities in the Ukraine held citizens’ assemblies to deal with local issues.

Over six days of deliberations, Assembly members, representing a socio-demographic cross-section of the community, worked alongside Council of Europe experts and facilitators to develop actionable recommendations for local governments. These focused on creating urban spaces for social interaction and improving household waste management. The municipal authorities of Zvyahel and Slavutych have expressed their commitment to considering the proposed recommendations.

Filed under: Applications, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Online Service Platform to Use Randomly-Selected Juries

Posted on January 20, 2025 by peterstone

The online service platform AnyService will now be using juries to arbitrate disputes involving service providers and consumers on its platform. The juries will be randomly selected from users with experience in the relevant area (e.g., experience with plumbing services for a dispute involving plumbing).

A painter was hired through the platform to paint a house. The client alleges that the painter failed to meet the agreed terms, while the painter argues otherwise. On all existing platforms, this issue would be resolved by customer service, but not on the AnyService platform.

Here, everything is resolved by a jury. The jury is made up of other platform users. The disputing parties do not know who the jurors are, and vice versa, making this system completely impartial and, as many claim, the safest in the world.

Filed under: Applications, Juries, Press, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Sortition in Yorkshire Bylines

Posted on January 9, 2025 by peterstone

Sortition gets a plug in an article recently published in the Yorkshire Bylines, entitled “Sortition Revolution: A Bold Plan to Avert Civilisation’s Collapse.” The article can be found here:

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/sortition-revolution-a-bold-plan-to-avert-civilisations-collapse/

The author is Peter Garbutt, a Green Party councillor in Sheffield: https://sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/about-us/councillors/councillor-peter-garbutt/

Unfortunately, the article doesn’t detail much of a case for government by Citizens’ Assemblies; Garbutt seems to take both them and UBI (universal basic income) as self-evidently good. Moreover, it relies upon a number of extremely dubious claims. (I hardly think that a concern with economic growth is some sort of con foisted upon the masses by the ruling class.) Nonetheless, this seems to be the latest attempt to connect green politics with sortition.

Filed under: Press, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Proposal: Allot White House press passes among all citizens

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Yoram Gat

Martin Gurri fulminates in the New York Post against the way Joe Biden’s mental decline was denied and downplayed over his term as president. Gurri points out that the White House press corps took an active part in the deception. Presumably this collaboration is a result of the fact that members of the corps are selected for their friendliness to the White House occupant. Sortition would be a remedy.

Reporters have special passes to the White House. They accompanied Biden on his trips, often on Air Force One. They saw what Appel saw: a president who “can’t say sentences.”

And they chose to think nothing of it, to say nothing, to remain at best incurious and at worst to lie and so curry favor with the mighty.

The news media’s corruption is too evident to need elaboration. But there ought to be consequences.

Here’s a modest proposal: Disband the White House press corps. Cast them out like money-changers from the temple. Select those American citizens entitled to question the president by lot, the way the Athenians chose their public officials.

Reference to Gurri’s article was sent to me by Roger Knights.

Filed under: Elections, Press, Sortition | Leave a comment »