Brett Hennig

Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Brett Hennig

[This is repost from https://www.bretthennig.com/legislature_by_lot_published]

Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance has just been published by Verso a few days ago. I contributed a chapter, “Who Needs Elections? Accountability, Equality, and Legitimacy Under Sortition” that questions the premise of the opening chapter of the book: that sortition should only accompany an elected chamber.

However, even as I’m excited by the publication of this new book, I’m thinking today about Erik Olin Wright, who conceived of the “Real Utopias” series and brought so many challenging and brilliant insights to this and his many other works, but sadly passed away recently. It was another book in this series, Deepening Democracy, which he co-edited as well, that started me down the path I’m now on. It was such an honour to meet him and get to know him – and to sing “Bella Ciao” together with him at his house a few short years ago.

Filed under: Academia, Books, Proposals, Sortition | 1 Comment »

International Sortition Network Second Annual Meeting

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Brett Hennig

[This is a repost from www.sortitionfoundation.org]

From Wednesday January 16 to Friday January 18 the international network, Democracy R&D, whose first principle is the use of “sortition (random selection) to assemble representative groups of everyday people“, will be meeting for the second time, this year in Paris.

Three directors of the Sortition Foundation will be attending, along with members of around 21 organisations and several “guest participants”. This year sees the network growing, with the inclusion of Involve, DemSoc, the RSA, DeliberaBrasil and Génération Nomination, alongside many of the participants from last year’s meeting in Madrid.

The meeting will also discuss the “Great National Debate” in France — a series of regional sortition assemblies — in response to the Gilet Jaunes protests.

It will also be very interesting to hear from the participants from Madrid, who were instrumental in that city becoming the first in modern Europe (and possibly the world?) to institute a sortition body (called “The Observatory”) alongside an elected assembly. The Observatory (which has 57 members, the same number as the elected city council), will have significant power to allocate funds to popular projects taken from Madrid’s online citizen proposal platform.

Sortition is finally moving in from the fringes, and the Sortition Foundation is excited to be a key participant in the Democracy R&D network, which is an integral part of that movement.

Filed under: Sortition | 1 Comment »

Sortition on Ted.com

Posted on June 6, 2018 by Brett Hennig

If you think democracy is broken, here’s an idea: let’s replace politicians with randomly selected people… My TEDxDanubia talk has been promoted to the front page of Ted.com – it should be the featured talk for the next 6 hours or so…

To celebrate, my publisher, Unbound, has cut the price of the e-book edition of The End of Politicians: Time for a Real Democracy.

Filed under: Sortition | Tagged: democracy, random selection, talk, TED | 14 Comments »

How to get from elections to sortition? Sortition Foundation strategy workshop

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Brett Hennig

On Sunday June 10, 2-5pm (British Summer Time/GMT + 1) the Sortition Foundation will be discussing strategy: what is the best way to get from elections to sortition?

There will be two face-to-face meetings, one in London and one in Cambridge, with people not in either of those locations welcome to join us online.

If you would like to join us, it is not too late to RSVP, just drop us an email and we will send you links to the agenda, our strategy discussion paper, and all the meeting details.

Strategy Discussion: How to get from elections to sortition?

When: Sunday June 10, 2-5pm (British Summer Time/GMT + 1).

Where: London, Cambridge, and online.

RSVP: Via email.

We look forward to talking with you about what you think is the best way forward.

Filed under: Elections, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Mavoix – French group uses sortition to select election candidates

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Brett Hennig

[Note: this is a repost from the Sortition Foundation]

“Who’s representing me the best?”

A group of friends began the collective #MAVOIX (meaning “my voice”) in France in 2015 – they all believed that the current form of our representative democracy has failed us.

The idea was to bring together diverse citizens from different backgrounds to collaborate, discuss and work out how to “hack” the Assemblée Nationale by allowing everyday citizens to participate in the creation of every single law. After a first run at a local election in 2016, the goal was set to send several deputies (Members of Parliament) to Parliament after the June 2017 election. Once elected, these deputies would play a very special role. Instead of voting according to their own program or convictions, they would always vote according to the outcome of every citizen who had voted on an online platform: if, for example, 10 #MAVOIX deputies were in the Assembly, and the result from the online platform about a law was 40% YES, 30% NO and 30% ABSTENTION, then the #MAVOIX deputies would vote in the same proportions (in this case: 4 YES, 3 NO, 3 ABSTENTIONS).

To prepare for the national election campaign, the collective worked for two years without any leaders or charismatic personalities. Decisions were made horizontally, after in depth discussions, always trying to find a consensus. If people disagreed, they could “fork” (a software development term), which means both options were tested. Soon afterwards, taking into account the results of the experiment, people could decide which option(s) to drop and how to improve the one they kept. This forking process was at the heart of the experimental spirit of #MAVOIX: myriads of small actions, followed by sharing of what has been learnt. An online forum, local/national meetings and open-source software were the tools used to share know-how and to deliberate on any choices to be made.

And because every contributor was an expert in some area, they developed a peer-to-peer process of teaching and learning skills. For instance, students from the Political-Science University created a MOOC to help everybody understand the actual duties and obligations of an MP (Member of Parliament) during his or her term in office. In these ways contributors could help and volunteer and bring ideas to resonate with the campaign.
Continue reading →

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

Back to the Future for a Real Democracy | Conway Hall Talk | Brett Hennig

Posted on May 3, 2018 by Brett Hennig

A sortition talk I gave in London (on 11 March 2018) as part of Conway Hall’s “Thinking on Sunday” series has been edited and published – you could consider it an extended version of my TEDx presentation…

Filed under: Athens, Deliberation, History, Sortition | Tagged: democracy, presentation, representation, sortition, talk | Leave a comment »

New “sortition around the globe” map

Posted on March 7, 2018 by Brett Hennig

The Sortition Foundation has launched its new “sortition around the globe” map – we know there are many examples missing (those that we do know about will slowly be added). If you want to help just get in touch!

And a reminder about Sortition Foundation events happening in London this weekend:

Sortition Foundation AGM, 8pm Saturday 10th March: contact us for details.
“Back to the Future for a Real Democracy” discussion at Conway Hall, 11am Sunday 11th March. Tickets now available.

Filed under: Applications, Experiments, Initiatives, Juries, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Back to the Future for a Real Democracy – London sortition talk

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Brett Hennig

20180311-Democracy-Sortition How can we fix our broken democracies? What lessons can we learn from the past and what bold new democratic experiments are happening right now? At Thinking on Sunday on March 11 at Conway Hall, and together with London Futurists and GlobalNet21, Brett Hennig, author of The End of Politicians: Time for a Real Democracy, will take you back in time through history before jumping back to the future to show how a real democracy of, by and for the people could work. Tickets are now available at http://buytickets.at/conwayhallethicalsociety/138492

Filed under: Experiments, History, Sortition | Tagged: Democracy talk | 1 Comment »

Launch of International Sortition Network: Democracy R&D

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Brett Hennig

Medialab Prado

On Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th of January 2018 around 40 people from more than 15 organisations will meet, many in person at Medialab Prado in Madrid (others will join online), to develop the founding principles and processes of an international sortition network: Democracy R&D.

The Sortition Foundation will be at the two day meeting, alongside representatives from newDemocracy (Australia), hosts ParticipaLab (Spain), Forum dos Cidadãos (Portugal), G1000 (Belgium) and G1000 (Netherlands), MASS LBP (Canada), Missions Publiques (France), Particitiz (Belgium), Japan Research Forum on Mini-Publics, Danish Board of Technology Foundation, Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation (Germany), ECI Campaign (EU), Democracy in Practice (Bolivia/US/Canada), Jefferson Center (US), Healthy Democracy (US), Empowering Participation (Australia), the Policy Jury Group (US) and the Nexus Institute (Germany).

The two day meeting promises to lay the groundwork for international collaboration and skill-sharing to promote and institute sortition locally, nationally, and even internationally. A post-meeting report will appear on the Sortition Foundation blog.

[Note: this is an edited repost from: http://www.sortitionfoundation.org/launch_of_international_sortition_network]

Filed under: Sortition | Tagged: democracy, network, sortition | 67 Comments »