davidschecter

Which actors for each activity?

Posted on December 14, 2011 by davidschecter

In a recent post, I proposed a generic set of activities for a legislative process, as an aide to conversations about design. After getting some useful feedback from Jorge, Yoram and Keith, the structure now looks like this:

1. Choosing issues to write bills for

1.1. Choosing values and goals for the polity

1.2. Choosing and revising categories of issues

1.3. Reviewing current legislation and its outcomes against values and goals

1.4. Proposing issues in each category to write bills for

1.5. Deciding which issues to write bills for

2. Writing bills

2.1. Developing and revising objectives and criteria for bills

2.2. Reviewing and accepting objectives and criteria for bills

2.3. Developing and revising alternative bill “designs”

2.4. Reviewing and accepting bill “designs”

2.5. Writing and revising the language of bills

2.6. Reviewing and accepting the language of bills

3. Voting on finalized bills

3.1. Education about issues and bills (learning by the decision makers)

3.2. Advocacy (by advocates, arguing for and against bills)

3.3. Deliberation (among decision makers, after hearing arguments)

3.4. Voting on bills

I would like to ask anyone in this forum – especially those of you who have made specific proposals — which actors you would propose to carry out each of these activities (for example, an allotted chamber, an elected legislature, a single-purpose allotted “panel,” the whole electorate, etc.). I’m hoping to arrange your answers side by side in a matrix, like this:

Activity	Actors proposed by person 1	Actors proposed by person 2
Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3

I think that if we could see everyone’s ideas about “who would do what” side by side, it would be much easier to see where we agree and where we disagree.

Are you willing to do this? And if so, what would be the most convenient way? I’ve created a Google doc that you could fill in, with columns written in for Terry, John, Jorge, Yoram, and Keith so far. Anyone else can simply log in, add your name in a new column, and fill in the actors that you’re proposing. Or, if you don’t use Google docs, I could send you a spreadsheet to fill out (please leave a comment below).

One other thing – if you disagree with my list of legislative activities, please feel free so say so, and to suggest improvements!

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 39 Comments »

Sortition in popular movements? Modern kleroterion?

Posted on December 9, 2011 by davidschecter

I’ve been thinking recently that one promising venue for experimenting with sortition might be popular movements such as Occupy here in the US, or the indignados in Spain. These are venues where people are unusually open to learning about, and even trying, new ways to organize society. Also, from what I know of here in San Francisco, the Occupy folks are trying to make most of their decisions in large “general assemblies,” which is very cumbersome, so I suspect that some of them would be very interested in ideas like sortition.

Does anybody here know of examples of sortition being used in popular movements, or have ideas about how it could work?

Also, does anyone know of a contemporary, technologically-assisted, affordable, user-friendly equivalent to the kleroterion that could be used in popular movements? I’m imagining something analogous to big meetings I’ve seen where all the attendees have hand-held devices that enable them to vote and then have the votes instantly tallied on a computer. I imagine that having a technology like that might make an experiment with sortition more desirable and feasible.

Filed under: Sortition | 13 Comments »

How to design a democratic legislative system? (part 1 – activities)

Posted on December 8, 2011 by davidschecter

I am new to this forum, and new to the study of sortition. I’m fascinated by the ideas and debates presented here, somewhat overwhelmed, and trying to formulate an organizing framework that can help me – and hopefully others – make sense of it all.

I’ve read with great interest the recent debates about Keith and Terry’s ideas in “Athenian Democracy Reincarnate,” and the recent exchange between Yoram and Alex about election vs. sortition. Rather than plunging into the debates, I’ve been asking myself “what are the basic questions that must be answered in order to design a democratic legislative system; what are the answers that people are presenting here; and what are the main points of agreement and disagreement?”

So far I can think of four highest-level questions for designing a legislative system:

What criteria should define a “democratic” (and “good”) legislative system?
What are the essential activities of the legislative process?
What actors should carry out each activity, playing what roles?
What processes should be used for each activity?

(Note: this is assuming a given structure of political units, and that’s a huge design issue in itself, but beyond my scope here)

I’m not going to start with criteria, because I’m afraid that the resulting discussion wouldn’t be useful. Instead, in this post I’m going to start with activities, then (hopefully) actors and roles in my next post, then processes, and then criteria.