Ahmed Teleb on Citizens’ Initiative Reviews

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Yoram Gat |

A new post by Ahmed Teleb: Citizens’ Initiative Reviews: Democracy via Vicarious Deliberation? Although there has been much discussion in deliberative democracy circles on both the potential and possible drawbacks of “intensive” citizen deliberation–especially on Equality by Lot–there has been less awareness and discussion of deliberative forums in practice. Below is a video interview (first […]

Filed under: Academia, Applications, Ballot measures, Press | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

Teleb: If Crowds Are Wise, Why Isn’t Congress?

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Yoram Gat |

Ahmed Teleb makes the wisdom-by-diversity argument against elections and more specifically against first-past-the-post systems: We’ve all heard of the “wisdom of crowds” especially after James Surowiecki’s 2004 best-selling book by that name and Scott Page’s 2007 “The Difference.” […] So why does the US Congress, a crowd of 535, seem so remarkably un-wise?

Filed under: Books, Elections | Tagged: | 43 Comments »

Report Back from the Hannah Arendt Center Conference on Sortition, part 2

Posted on November 2, 2021 by Ahmed R. Teleb |

Reporting from Bard College’s Hannah Arendt Center Annual Conference by Ahmed R. Teleb The Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College recently hosted a two-day in-person and live webcast conference on sortition on Oct 14-15, which I attended online. Each day of the conference also included a midday break-out small group discussions in person and online. […]

Filed under: Academia, Applications, Deliberation, Experiments, Participation, Sortition, Theory | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Bundestag gives sortition a spin

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Yoram Gat |

Ahmed Teleb wrote to point to the following Tweet thread. Are prudent German politicians getting more adventurous? "German Bundestag decides on new form of citizen participation: Citizens' Assembly to present to Parliament citizen's report on Germany's role in the world". https://t.co/jy1ZzuxrKd (A thread) — Dominik Hierlemann (@DHierlemann) June 18, 2020 First time that the Bundestag […]

Filed under: Applications, Sortition | 1 Comment »

The tired democracy

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Yoram Gat |

A discussion with Etienne Chouard and David Van Reybrouck under the title “The tired democracy – what are the solutions?” was held in Brussels in April. A video of part of the meeting is available. Unfortunately, the audio quality is rather poor. Below is Ahmed Teleb’s English summary of the talk (Thanks!).

Filed under: Sortition | 14 Comments »

2013 review – sortition-related events

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Yoram Gat |

Ahmed Teleb suggested the following as the most noteworthy sortition-related events of 2013: the publication of Hélène Landemore’s book, Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many, which has a section called “Elections versus Random Selection”: Random lotteries would indeed produce what is known as ‘descriptive representation’ of the people […] ensuring […]

Filed under: Books, Elections, meta, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , | 22 Comments »

Minimal Reforms

Posted on April 23, 2013 by keithsutherland |

AhmedRTeleb: “What minimal reforms would you like to see implemented given the reasons you advocate for sortition?” The subject of this sentence is “minimal reforms”, so this would indicate an emphasis on practical implementation (or, even, incrementalism), as opposed to a blueprint for the New Jerusalem, Utopia, New Atlantis, Aleatoria or the Republic of Politdoche. […]

Filed under: Action, Applications, Initiatives, Proposals, Sortition | 19 Comments »

PR

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Yoram Gat |

Ahmed R. Teleb writes: The more I explore Equality By Lot the more I’m impressed by the quantity of information and the quality of the discussions. When Yoram linked to some informative posts from 2 and 3 years ago, I realized that a lot of the work you Kleroterians are doing is virtually invisible on […]

Filed under: meta | 9 Comments »

Contributors

Terry Bouricius served ten years as a city councilor and another ten years as a legislator in the Vermont House of Representatives in the U.S. He has worked as an election reform policy analyst and election administrator for non-profit organizations. His experience and research led him to conclude that elections are simply not the right […]