Dowding, Bosworth and Giuliani: Sortition, Parties and Political Careerism

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Yoram Gat

A new paper in The Political Quarterly:

Sortition, Parties and Political Careerism

Keith Dowding, William Bosworth and Adriano Giuliani

Abstract: One reason for growing distrust of politicians, parties, and governments is the increase in ‘careerism’: politicians who have never worked outside politics and seem to work inside politics for themselves as much as for the common good. Sortition—choosing representatives by lottery—is one solution. However, random selection of representatives breaks the accountability link provided by elections and leaves amateur politicians at the mercy of their civil servants. It would, critics argue, destroy competitive party politics, the foundation of modern democracy.

We suggest that parties select their candidates through sortition of party members, with successful incumbent MPs standing again. This would mitigate the ills of patronage and adverse selection without losing professionalism and political experience. It would encourage deliberation and the proper persuasive and representation function of parties, alongside the accountability that elections provide. It would also, we suggest, lead to better advice to politicians from policy units within and outside the public service.

Keywords: careerism, democracy, political careers, political parties, professional politicians, sortition

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Press, Proposals, Sortition |

8 Responses

Oliver Milne, on April 24, 2025 at 12:08 pm said:

Unintended consequences I can see for this:
- elitist parties that strongly restrict membership to a hand-picked few will have exponentially better candidates
- massive overrepresentation of cranks and incompetent busybodies among candidates of parties that don’t do that
- maintains the damaging dynamics of electoral politics
New ideas are always welcome, but this seems to combine the worst of both worlds.

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Yoram Gat, on June 9, 2025 at 2:52 am said:

Philip Cowley writes about this paper on PoliticsHome:

Missing from the proposal in the article – but surely required – would be some ability to say no, if only because otherwise you would have people running for election while making it very clear they didn’t want to be an MP. But any opt-out reduces yet further the benefits of sortition. Rather than everyone, the pool of candidates would now just be the ambitious members of deeply unrepresentative political parties. Which is what we’ve got now.

It is rather wonderful how the obvious solution to this supposed dilemma – i.e., setting things up so that the large majority of allotted citizens would readily accept offered positions – is being studiously avoided.

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keithsutherland, on June 9, 2025 at 5:59 am said:

Whilst the solution may be obvious to armchair critics, people who have spent decades labouring at the sortition coalface have been unable to overcome the problem of (mis)representation. And sometimes this leads to deeply unintended consequences.

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Yoram Gat, on June 10, 2025 at 1:51 am said:

One’s heart goes out for those poor souls who “have spent decades labouring at the sortition coalface” and yet have not in all that time managed to hit on the idea of enticing people with pay. Presumably such souls have never encountered either in their personal experience or theoretical work the notion that pay could serve as incentive for action.

https://equalitybylot.com/2023/11/11/low-acceptance-rate-as-an-anti-democratic-excuse/

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keithsutherland, on June 10, 2025 at 5:28 am said:

In the UK trial jurors are paid, but participation is still a civic obligation for those selected by lot.

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Yoram Gat, on June 11, 2025 at 7:15 pm said:

> In the UK trial jurors are paid

Interestingly, the UK government appears to be in error about this matter. They brazenly claim:

You will not be paid for doing jury service

https://www.gov.uk/jury-service/what-you-can-claim-if-youre-an-employee

(Not that this really matters for my point above.)

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keithsutherland, on June 12, 2025 at 3:44 pm said:

I must have misremembered (as usual). But it strengthens my case that all forms of jury service are a civic obligation. I’ve got nothing against jury payments per se, it’s just that if your name is drawn from the hat then you have to show up. In practice this would require a mix of sticks and carrots.

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Yoram Gat, on June 14, 2025 at 8:17 am said:

> I must have misremembered (as usual). But it strengthens my case

Naturally, because no matter what the facts are, they always strengthen your preconceived positions.

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