Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good, Part 5/5

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Yoram Gat |

Previously published parts of this essay are the Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. (ii) Constitutional workshops, a practical tool for popular education for training a multitude of citizen constitution-writers, guardians of the common good Representative government (falsely called “representative democracy” – a deceptive oxymoron) is a regime of domination of […]

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Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good, Part 4

Posted on April 18, 2020 by Yoram Gat |

Previously published parts of this essay are the Introduction, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. It remains to examine the different applications of sortition in politics: Part II. Comparison of different applications of sortition Having seen how poorly the common good is served by elections and how well it is defended by sortition, we […]

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good, Part 3

Posted on April 4, 2020 by Yoram Gat |

Previously published parts of this essay are the Introduction and Part 1, Part 2. (ii) Elections put the worst in power (whereas sortition does not) Regarding the rulers, by accepting that we need “representatives” we observe often that election among candidates brings into power the worst qualified – the exact opposite of that which it […]

Filed under: Elections, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good, Part 2

Posted on March 28, 2020 by Yoram Gat |

Previously published parts of this essay are the Introduction and Part 1. (i) Elections infantilize, and in this way paralyze, the voters. They discourage thinking and defending the common good (whereas sortition does not) Starting with the governed, let’s see, point-by-point, how elections infantilize, and in this way paralyze, the voters: 1. By definition, elections […]

Filed under: Athens, History, Sortition, Theory | 28 Comments »

Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good, Part 1

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Yoram Gat |

Background about this essay and its table of contents can be found here. What follows is a comparison of elections and sortition. The essay is divided into two parts. In part I, elections and sortition are compared in terms of general principles. In part II, they are compared in terms of different possible applications. Part […]

Filed under: History, Sortition, Theory | 4 Comments »

Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good: Breaking out of the electoral trap

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Yoram Gat |

What follows is the table of contents of a 2016 essay by Étienne Chouard, which Chouard describes as “my most recent methodical comparison between election and sortition”. I will publish my translation to English of the essay in several parts. The original French version is here. Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good: […]

Filed under: Organizing, Participation, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 5 Comments »

Chouard: An allotted referendum chamber

Posted on January 5, 2019 by Yoram Gat |

Etienne Chouard, who has been the most vocal and consistent French advocate for sortition, is having somewhat of a day in the limelight in the context of the Gilets Jaunes protests. Chouard’s other major procedural proposal is the Popular initiative (in french: Referendum d’initiative citoyenne, often referred to as RIC). A major issue with the […]

Filed under: Initiatives, Mass action, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 14 Comments »

Antoine Bevort: Chouard and democracy: an intellectual and political fraud

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Yoram Gat |

The following is my translation of a recent article Antoine Bevort in the online French publication Mediapart. Like Tommy Lasserre’s Sortition in politics – the false good idea, which appeared in Mediapart two years ago, the article is a critique of Chouard and his proposals. Bevort makes some similar points, but, unlike Lasserre, doesn’t focus […]

Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Elections, History, Juries, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 31 Comments »

Chouard: No democracy without sortition

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Yoram Gat |

An interview with Etienne Chouard in Ragemag magazine (translation by Google Translate, with my touch-ups): Is sortition the future of democracy? Sortition is not the future of democracy, it is inseparable from democracy; it is a much stronger link than a chronological phase: there is no democracy without sortition. Chouard also considers the popular initiative […]

Filed under: Press, Sortition | 126 Comments »

Etienne Chouard

Posted on May 24, 2012 by peterstone |

I spoke to Etienne Chouard for the first time last night. He recommended the following TED talk he did: It is close-captioned with English subtitles. He also pointed me to the following talk (again in French) which unfortunately does not yet have subtitles: I’ve only watched the first talk, and I must say I think […]

Filed under: Athens, Elections, Sortition | 12 Comments »

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