Equality by lot

I haven’t much time for this review, both literally and metaphorically. It is a long review of Helene Landemore’s book in Foreign Affairs and is tenaciously conventional in all its assessments. I include the final lame paragraph, together with an invitation to email me on ngruen at gmail if you’d like me to email you the full paper. The public (paywalled) website is here.

Democracy is in trouble. There is no silver bullet, and the solutions must be wide-ranging and realistic. The reform agenda should include institutional innovations such as citizens’ assemblies; changes to clearly dysfunctional political, electoral, and campaign finance systems; and bottom-up efforts to rebuild the social and cultural foundations of democratic life. Landemore’s book is valuable not because it persuades readers that representative democracy should be abolished but because it dramatizes how much better the current system could be-and offers one of the many reforms that will be necessary if democracy is to live up to its potential.

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