Part 1 Part 2 Part 3. I conclude this series of posts by refuting three “philosophical” arguments. These arguments purport to provide theoretical bases for the use of sortition. 10. “The Blind break”: The trouble with elections is that it appoints decision makers based on bad reasons – connections, wealth, ambition, etc. Sortition selects decision […]
Filed under: Academia, Elections, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 4 Comments »
Part 1 Part 2. The arguments below make a case for sortition that is based on a general, rather vague sense of a need for change. 6. Elections are an 18th century technology. We need to modernize democracy by adopting new, modern ideas and institutions. Sortition is one such new idea and is enabled by […]
Filed under: Academia, Elections, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 9 Comments »
Part 1 is here. The two arguments presented below pin the problem with elections on the voters. 4. The masses are rationally ignorant. Therefore any system that relies on their judgement would not function well. Sortition does not rely on mass judgement. According to this argument elections present a variety of choices to the voters, […]
Filed under: Academia, Elections, Sortition, Theory | 17 Comments »
Some years ago I wrote a set of posts refuting several standard arguments against sortition (1, 2, 3, 4). It seems useful, however, to refute some oft-offered arguments for sortition as well. These are arguments that provide a poor foundation for the idea of applying sortition in government. Such arguments are made, and repeated reflexively, […]
Filed under: Academia, Elections, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 20 Comments »
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 16. Why not use direct democracy? “Direct democracy” is not a democratic mechanism – it suffers from much of the same fundamental problems of electoral systems. Much in the same way that an electoral candidate has to have the backing of powerful people or organizations in order to become […]
Filed under: Elections, Sortition | Tagged: direct democracy | 2 Comments »
Part 1 Part 2 11. Elections are a mechanism of accountability. It allows the electorate to reward or punish those with power. There is no way to hold government accountable using sortition. Using elections as an accountability mechanism is like a bank’s board of directors appointing a new bank manager for a 4-year term and […]
Filed under: Academia, Elections, Religion, Sortition | 112 Comments »
Part 1 is here. 6. Random sampling will occasionally produce unrepresentative samples. Significant deviation of a sample from the population sampled is in fact very rare. For example, in a population evenly split between men and women, the chance of having fewer than 40 women in a sample of one hundred people is less than […]
Filed under: Juries, Sortition | 14 Comments »
1. It would be madness to appoint public officials by lot. No one would choose a pilot or builder or flutist by lot, nor any other craftsman for work in which mistakes are far less disastrous than mistakes in statecraft. The problem with this ancient argument against sortition (attributed to Socrates) is that it implicitly […]
Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Sortition | 47 Comments »
In the final chapter of her book, Hélène Landemore addresses a few potential objections to her proposals. I’ll skip over the objections regarding ways in which the Icelandic setup (which supposedly serves as an example where an “open” process functioned well) is atypical of other political situations (e.g., because Iceland is supposedly small or homogeneous). […]
Filed under: Academia, Books, Elections, Sortition, Theory | 4 Comments »
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Equality by lot 