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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>Landemore’s book is valuable not because it persuades readers that representative democracy should be abolished
In what sense could democracy in large multicultural states be anything other than representative? Surely the issue is what form(s) of representation are required (see Pitkin’s cateories). Or does the reviewer conclude that the book is advocating direct democracy?
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A divided society makes any sort of democracy untenable. There is no majority opinion, because there is no majority.
It’s worth noting that the people never voted for multiculturalism as we have it today.
Democracy must be rebuilt locally, or not at all. And we may as well give sortition a try.
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Daniela Cammack’s forthcoming book Demos: How the People Ruled Athens argues that democracy emerged out of a period of civil war (a divided society). But Athens was a direct democracy in which sortition played a relatively small role. If so, then the challenge is how to re-purpose Athenian democracy for the modern (representative) age. Nadia Urbinati argues that political parties are the reincarnation of Athenian policy advocates, and decision making by large sortitional juries would be the representative equivalent of the Assembly. Like it or lump it, large multicultural states are the reality, and it would take an apocalypse to revert to localism.
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I read the full review above by Sheri Berman. I find myself in full agreement with most of it, maybe all of it. Sticking to the quoted paragraph: “The reform agenda should include institutional innovations such as citizens’ assemblies;” Agree, on this point she also agrees with the sortitionists, something to be welcomed on this blog, not sneered at.
“changes to clearly dysfunctional political, electoral, and campaign finance systems;” For the U.S.A. I definitely agree.
“bottom-up efforts to rebuild the social and cultural foundations of democratic life.” Agree (I think), her review discusses this further – though it seems less like a political matter and that sortition alone won’t fix it.
“Landemore’s book is valuable not because it persuades readers that representative [electoral] democracy should be abolished…” Ahh, there is the rub. Some sortitionists believe there should be a radical abolition of elections and complete replacement of elections by sortition. I disagree with this radical notion, but instead support a hybrid approach that combines both elections and sortition.
Landemore’s book “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.” Sounds like Ms. Berman could be persuaded to support sortition in some type of hybrid form.
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FYI, you can read the review on the Foreign Affairs webpage if you hit ‘stop’ as soon as the text loads, and then turn on ‘reader view’ in the top bar of your browser.
Much as the review is relatively constitutionally conservative, Berman does leave space for reforms that would have seemed radical a few years ago, such as citizens’ assemblies setting parliamentary agendas. This is a great sign of progress in my view.
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Carl:> “Landemore’s book is valuable not because it persuades readers that representative [electoral] democracy should be abolished…” Ahh, there is the rub.
Agree. Helene told me that reading Manin’s book convinced her that the transition to representative democracy was a fundamentally wrong turn (Yoram and other lottocrats would agree). But she also told me, when commenting on my PhD thesis, that her principal concerns were epistemic. I confess that I’m at a loss to understand how democracy in large multicultural states could be anything other than representative, and would argue that large sortitional juries are the only way of establishing descriptive representation. But this doesn’t mean that election has no role to play as, according to Urbinati, political parties are the (representative) reincarnation of Athenian ho boulomenos. Carl is right to argue for a hybrid model.
Oliver:> citizens’ assemblies setting parliamentary agendas
To my mind this has the hybrid model back to front, as it contravenes Dahl’s stipulation that the demos should have exclusive control of agenda setting.
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Kevin, Could you elaborate on “her principal concerns were epistemic”?
Could you elaborate on “Dahl’s stipulation that the demos should have exclusive control of agenda setting.” Does this imply a representative citizens’ assembly, an elected legislature, direct popular vote on legislation, or something else?
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Carl,
Helene’s comments were in an email exchange regarding my draft PhD thesis some ten years ago. My priority with sortition was always the accuracy of the descriptive representation, whereas (at least at that time) she was more concerned with the epistemic properties of random selection in terms of the “diversity trumps ability” theorem.
Dahl has two relevant criteria:
“The demos must have the exclusive opportunity to decide how matters are to be placed on the agenda of matters that are to be decided by means of the democratic process.” (Dahl, 1989, p. 113)
Large modern states contain a range of ideological perspectives which need to be represented in a way that corresponds with their prevalence, and it’s hard to imagine how this could be done without a proportionally-elected legislature with a reduction in the policy proposal threshold to ensure the ideological diversity is not destroyed by the majority rule (50% +1).
“At the decisive stage of collective decisions, each citizen must be ensured an equal opportunity to express a choice that will be counted as equal in weight to the choice expressed by any other citizen. In determining outcomes at the decisive stage, these choices, and only these choices, must be taken into account” (ibid., p. 109)
Statistical theory would suggest that the decision outcome (“choice”) of large randomly-selected samples would cohere (within an agreed margin of error). Dahl ruled out direct democracy via referendums on account of the need for an “attentive” [mini]populus.
>a representative citizens’ assembly
Unfortunately accurate descriptive representation presupposes very large assemblies (Dahl suggested 1,000) which are far too big for the moderated exchanges privileged by deliberative democrats.
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Sorry, that was me (Keith Sutherland)
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Keith, Thank you for the insights on Landemore’s and Dahl’s views.
All, For whatever it may be worth, Landemore’s latest book (unlike her prior books or Dahl’s books) passes the “Can I find it in my local library test.”–at least for Fairfax County where I live.
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It helps when you are published by Allen Lane (Penguin Books) rather than a university press! Helene is also very active on YouTube.
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The “there is no silver bullet” approach to reform is the sure way to maintaining oligarchy. Popular political energy is a very blunt instrument. It cannot promote a large number of political changes. Therefore if we start from an elite-ruled system and if political progress depends on making a large number of small changes then the inevtable outcome is that those changes will be controlled by elite players. The outcome will inevitably be maintenance of elite power. (Shifts of power within the elite are possible, but that is not a path toward democracy.)
Yes, we are always treated to the wise cautionary stories about the horrors of attempts at “social engineering”, revolutions, -isms, etc. But these are of course no more than excuses for the status-quo by those who benefit from it. We should be aiming at a radical break from the tradition of oligarchy. (Obviously, that does not mean that change should not be done with forethought and care. Quite the opposite.)
Sortition is a silver bullet. (Or at least it is our best candidate for a silver bullet.) We should use it, without compromise and without being distracted by irrelevant (or even harmful) notions.
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>if political progress depends on making a large number of small changes
We are proposing only three changes:
PR for elections
Reduced policy proposal threshold
Decision making by large sortitional juries
The take-home message of Cammack’s book is that the 4th century reforms gave the demos kratos over the elite orators. We are proposing the same, the only difference being representation is necessary for large multicultural states.
No need for magic bullets (or projects derived from normative theory).
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The focus of Cammack’s book is the use of words in the classical texts (especially Aristotle). On p.114 she points out that the verb krateo means to “be stronger than” or “prevail”. As with the verb archo (command, govern), it is a form of rule that needs an object: those who prevailed had to prevail over someone else. In the fourth century the poor (the physically dominant part of the population) prevailed over the political elite. Without such an object, then the kratos in demokratia makes no sense.
Rather than seeking to abolish elites, it’s better to design a system where the physically dominant part of the population should prevail over them. In Athens this was via voting in the assembly, and sortition had only a minor prophylactic role to play. In modernity, where universal participation is impossible, sortition can recruit representative samples as a proxy for the demos, and PR election along with a reduced policy threshold can ensure that the elite ideologies better match the beliefs and preferences of the demos.
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“In Athens this was via voting in the assembly, and sortition had only a minor prophylactic role to play.”
I agree that the Ekklesia was sovereign in the sense that it had the final say on all policy questions, but day to day government in Athens was handled almost *entirely* by sortition-based bodies, of three types:
(i) the Boulē or Council of 500 that prepared Assembly meetings, received ambassadors, oversaw magistrates, and 50 of whose members literally slept in the Council chamber every night so it could handle emergencies,
(ii) the yearly jury pool of 6000, typically divvied up into juries of 501, which solved all kinds of conflicts including political and constitutional ones (esp in 4th century), and
(iii) around 80% of the 700 or so magistrates selected each year to handle specialized tasks (war, money, water, ports..) were selected by lottery, generally in 10-man teams; the generals (strategoi) were elected, one per civic tribe, also into a 10-man body.
So no, this was far more than prophylactic, wouldn’t you say?
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I’m only half way through Daniela’s book, but she is adamant that during the 4th Century, the assembly ruled en masse. Sortition advocates (including myself) relied on Hansen’s claim that 4th century lawmaking was arrogated to large randomly-selected juries (nomothetai) but this turns out to have been a mistranslation. I’m currently debating with her as to whether a modern version of Hansen’s claim would contravene principles of popular sovereignty, as statistical theory would suggest that it would make no difference which citizens were drawn into the sample, the outcome would be the same (within agreed margins of error).
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Very interesting. But for me, looking at the constellation of democratic institutions in Athens and saying, ‘which one ruled’, is like listening to a Beatles record and asking, ‘which one of the four is playing the song?’
Thinking holistically is a better approach, I think — the sortition-based, open/self-selected, and elected bodies all worked together in an interdependent way to produce citizen rule. The Assembly had the final say on laws (but it only met 1-2 times a month), the juries on disputes (meeting every day but only hearing particular cases), and the Council and magistrates actually steered the state in between, and were ultimately held accountable to the Assembly after their service.
As for the nomothetai, it was an ingenious innovation after the disasters of 411 and 403 (the aristocratic coup and Thirty Tyrants, happening during the plague and Pelop War), to create a review process for new laws (nomoi), and hold proposers of ‘unconstitutional’ measures criminally accountable — the nomothetai effectively replaced ostracism as the ‘escape valve’ for demagogic pressure in the state.
And there’s no sign that the demos-in-Assembly ever considered the demos-in-nomothetai as an illegitimate subsample of the whole. The complete lack of coups in the 4th century, and relative prosperity despite the loss of empire, proves that this constitutional innovation did its work pretty darn well.
Can’t wait to read Cammack’s book too!
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>: there’s no sign that the demos-in-Assembly ever considered the demos-in-nomothetai as an illegitimate subsample of the whole.
This assumes that Hansen’s 4th century nomothetai theory is correct, whereas Mirko Canevaro has discounted it as a mistranslation. The challenge for sortition theorists is to demonstrate that, given modern understandings of mathematical proportionality, synecdochical representation would apply to decision making by large randomly selected juries in the legislative domain as well as the dikasteria.
Cammack’s book could well be seen as a polemic against anachronism — deliberative democrats viewing the council as a precedent for their modern project and sortitionists viewing allotment as the most democratic aspect of ancient governance (drawing on a couple of lines from Aristotle). Daniela cites Aristotle extensively to come to very different conclusions.
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