Rethinking Athenian Democracy

Posted on October 13, 2015 by keithsutherland

I’ve just finished reading Daniela Cammack’s PhD thesis (one chapter was presented recently here by Peter Stone) and would warmly recommend it — it’s mercifully short and extremely readable (available to download on the Harvard website). Chapter 3: The Most Democratic Branch? The Assembly vs. the Courts is of particular interest as it seeks to overturn the view that a) the assembly was the primary institution of Athenian democracy and b) the fourth-century reforms were conservative in nature. Cammack’s interpretation supports Yoram and Terry’s view that the switch in emphasis to randomly-selected institutions was in order to enhance the rule of the demos, rather than being a juridical a check on popular sovereignty (the view of Hansen, Ostwald, Sealey [and myself]). The courts (both legislative and juridical) were much less open to manipulation by elites as a) speech rights were restricted to litigants and persons elected by the assembly, b) isegoria was balanced by the use of a water clock and c) secret voting meant that it was harder to intimidate citizens into voting in any way other than by their considered judgment (aided by the higher minimum age and need to swear the dikastic oath). She provides several examples of assembly decisions that were heavily influenced by factional and elite domination
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Filed under: Academia, Athens, Distribution by lot, History, Juries, Sortition | 83 Comments »

Easton: Who would be a member of parliament?

Posted on May 12, 2015 by keithsutherland

A widespread public view (also prevalent on this blog) is that elected politicians are members of a remote political class, dedicated to pursuing their own interests at the expense of those who they purport to represent:

As the Times journalist Louis Heren said when asked what went through his mind when a politician shared a confidence, many members of the public hear an MP and think: “Why is this bastard lying to me?”

BBC home editor Mark Easton, however, takes a different perspective

Most politicians in my experience are driven by a sense of public service. Some of them advance ideas for improving common well-being that are far removed from my own. But that doesn’t make them self-serving.

Full post

Filed under: Elections | Leave a comment »

The Life Course Dynamics of Affluence

Posted on February 24, 2015 by keithsutherland

A new paper by sociologists Thomas Hirschl and Mark Rank (H&R) on PLOS One casts doubt on the arguments that electoral arrangements in the US place disproportionate power in the hands of a tiny elite of rich citizens, at the expense of the interests of ‘the masses’:

Social awareness of the growing distance between top-level earners versus the rest of the income distribution helped to spark the Occupy movement and focus media attention on economic inequality. Much of the associated rhetoric presumes that the same individuals persist in top-level percentiles, in particular the 1 percent. This presumption is erroneous to the extent that year-to-year mobility functions to turnover incumbents. To the extent there is turnover, then this functions to buffer inequality, e.g. take the hypothetical case of 100 percent annual turnover within the composition of the top 10 percent, creating the condition of no inequality at this percentile level when measured across a decade. This study explores this empirical possibility, and other possibilities, by analyzing mobility associated with top-level income in the United States. (p.7)

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Filed under: Academia, Elections | 15 Comments »

Elect leaders by lottery suggests David Van Reybrouck

Posted on October 30, 2014 by keithsutherland

The Soapbox feature on BBC2 Daily Politics was today (29/10/2014) handed to Dutch historian David Van Reybrouck.

Electing leaders via a lottery may be a crazy idea, but it is being carried out now in parts of Europe, says a Belgian author and academic. David Van Reybrouck said with trust in politicians at a record low, and party memberships and the number of voters falling, it could be an idea to renew interest in politics again. He said lotteries have been a longer-standing tool of democracy than elections, which he claims could be an “obstacle to democracy”, and only been around for 200 years.

Full version with Q&A starting at 01:16:45. Truncated YouTube version.

Filed under: Press, Sortition | 14 Comments »

The rich or the powerful?

Posted on October 24, 2014 by keithsutherland

There has been a lot of debate on this blog recently as to whether or not political outcomes are unduly influenced by the rich; in this post I want to consider the influence of other nondemocratic agents – activists, civil society pressure groups, non-corporate lobbyists and academics in the social sciences and humanities. The reason for the inclusion of the last category is because most political leaders are educated in these disciplines – unlike, say, in China, it’s hard to identify political leaders who studied the natural sciences or engineering – so academics in these fields will have had a powerful influence in their formative years. There are more Oxford PPE (politics, philosophy and economics) graduates in the House of Commons than Old Etonians (35 to 20) and 50% of ministers and 28 percent of MPs were educated at Oxbridge, the vast majority in the above-mentioned subjects. Jeremy Waldron, in his inaugural lecture for his (Oxford) chair of social and political theory argued against the focus of the PPE syllabus on the ’57 varieties of luck egalitarianism’ as opposed to ‘political’ issues like representation, sovereignty and the rule of law, and it’s the resulting influence of the equality lobby that I want to address in this post. Some of the material is anecdotal, and some evidence of partisan influences in the formulation of a UN convention on disabilities equality.

The primary school in my village (pop. c.300) has recently constructed, at considerable expense, a ‘sensory room’ to meet the needs of one part-time disabled pupil. (Bear in mind this is happening at a time when local authority budgets are squeezed to the extent that rural residents are being told that they will need to grit their own roads this winter (and pay for the materials) as the council does not have the funds.) This is the result of government policy that insists that the disabled must be fully integrated in regular society, and has closed down most of the special schools that accommodated the specific needs of disabled children. Speaking to two parents of disabled children (one Aspergers and one cerebral palsy), they both volunteered that this politically-motivated policy has been disastrous for their children because, unlike their peers in special schools, their everyday growing-up experience provided a constant reminder of their neediness.
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Filed under: Academia, Initiatives, meta | Tagged: , , , , | 9 Comments »

Nick Clegg calls for sortition-based constitutional convention

Posted on September 22, 2014 by keithsutherland

Writing in the Sunday Times in the aftermath of the Scottish Referendum, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg proposes a citizen-jury based constitutional convention:

I welcome Labour’s decision to embrace the long-standing Liberal Democrat call for a constitutional convention — but it needs a precise mandate, beginning next year and concluding in 2017. It should have a citizen’s jury at its heart, representing every corner of the UK. One area it will need to address is the future of the House of Lords, which, in my view, would better serve people as an elected second chamber, in keeping with federal systems across the world. Ultimately, however, it will not be up to politicians — this process will be led by the people.

It’s often puzzled me that politicians are eager to use sortition as a way to determine complex constitutional issues, but we can’t be trusted to make everyday political decisions (the price of bread, tax rates, invading foreign countries, gay marriage etc). Clegg’s proposal also appears to confuse the notion of a jury (which determines the outcome of a debate) and political leadership — “this process will be led by the people” — reminding one of Ledru-Rollin’s epithet: “there go the people, I must follow them for I am their leader”. We won’t make any progress until the conceptual and practical distinction between these two aspects of politics (leadership and decision-making) is respected. In a democracy, political leaders can propose and advise but they should not determine the outcome — the decision should be in the hands of a statistically-representative microcosm of the citizen body. The problem in this particular instance, of course, is that English citizens would outnumber those of the other nations of the UK by an order of magnitude and the English would be unlikely to accept numerical parity between the nations (i.e. 1/4 of the composition of the citizen jury). So sortition, in this case, would only make the problem worse.

Filed under: Elections, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 9 Comments »

Vernon Bogdanor calls for sortition

Posted on September 17, 2014 by keithsutherland

The Sunday Times has published a pull-out on the Scottish Referendum and asked Vernon Bogdanor (David Cameron’s politics tutor at Oxford, now professor of government at King’s College London and the UK’s leading constitutional expert) to examine the consequences of the Referendum for the rest of the UK. Here’s an excerpt from his article:

The Next Question: Should England have a new Magna Carta?

Here is one suggestion. The Scottish referendum has released a hitherto submerged civic spirit, especially among younger voters. That spirit could also be tapped in England.

Suppose a small proportion of councillors — say 5% or 10% — were to be selected randomly by lot from the electoral register. Those chosen could refuse to serve, but most would probably do so and would include the young and members of ethnic minorities, groups markedly underrepresented in local government.

Those selected would be genuine independents, deciding what was best for their communities without being beholden to party. They would undergo a valuable form of civic education with beneficial consequences for local democracy. Local government could begin once again to become representative government.

Bogdanor reviewed both of my books on sortition — the first time (The Party’s Over) quietly ridiculing it and the second time (A People’s Parliament) agreeing that sortition is something that should be investigated at the local level.

Filed under: Ballot measures, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 13 Comments »

The Blind Break, the Invisible Hand and the Wisdom of Crowds: The political potential of sortition

Posted on September 12, 2014 by keithsutherland

[Update: Commenting was accidentally initially off, enabled now.]

Draft paper:

Abstract: Following (Waldron, 2013), this paper draws a distinction between ‘social’ and ‘political’ variants of sortition, focusing principally on the latter. The two leading theories – the ‘blind break’ and the ‘invisible hand’ of descriptive representation – rely on different principles, focus on different levels of analysis (individual and collective) and have little in common. The attempt by epistemic democrats to bridge the gap via small-group face-to-face deliberation fails on account of the lack of concern for statistical representativity and the lack of distinction between the different roles of advocacy and judgment (proposing and disposing) in political decision-making, sortition only being relevant to the latter function.

This is derived from the paper that I presented at the recent IPSA Montreal conference, where I was encouraged to write it up and submit to a journal. I’d really appreciate comments and criticisms via this forum. Here’s the full draft (click the download button on the right).

Filed under: Academia, Sortition, Theory | Tagged: , , | 55 Comments »

Kleristocracy and Neoconservatism: Spot the Difference

Posted on July 22, 2014 by keithsutherland

Kleristocracy is a term, coined by Jon Roland, for the concentration of political power in sortition-based systems, and has been advocated by a number of commentators on this blog. It’s struck me recently that this has a lot in common with the neoconservative worldview that has led to such disastrous outcomes in (for example) Iraq and Libya and I want to use this post to explore the parallels.

Neoconservatives argue that the goal of foreign policy is the liberation of oppressed nations from tyranny – ideally through their own efforts, if not then with a bit of help from the “forces of freedom” – followed by the institution/imposition of democracy, enabling the self-organising powers of “the people” to operate in an unfettered manner. Kleristocrats also argue that “the people” should be liberated from tyranny (of the rich and powerful) and empowered by “real” democracy – the only difference between kleristocrats and neoconservatives being the use of an alternative balloting method.
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Filed under: Ballot measures, Elections, Sortition, Theory | 71 Comments »

The Median Voter Rules — OK?

Posted on July 16, 2014 by keithsutherland

Cabinet reshuffle montage: ministers in Downing Street
David Cameron used his reshuffle to promote a number of women – and to sack Michael Gove

Francis Elliott, Michael Savage and Laura Pitel, The Times, July 16 2014:

Michael Gove was removed as education secretary after David Cameron’s election guru warned about his “toxic” polling. Mr Gove paid the price as the prime minister reshaped his cabinet into an election-fighting unit, more than doubling the number of women in a top team that he claimed “reflects modern Britain”. . . [P]olling showing that more than half of voters thought the education secretary was doing a bad job fatally undermined him. Insiders say that Lynton Crosby, the Tories’ election strategist, led a powerful coalition inside No 10 calling for Mr Gove to be removed.

Michael Gove was the architect of the government’s ‘free schools’ policy, which was intended to encourage state-maintained schools to aspire to the values and achievements of independent (fee-paying) schools. This was certainly not a policy designed to appeal to the ‘rich and powerful’ (who can afford the fees of independent schools) as it increases the competition for places in top universities. The toppling of Gove is, ironically, a victory for the rich and powerful, but it was instituted by the need to pander to the preferences of the median voter. The commitment of the government to free schools was ideological, as opposed to reflecting the interests of the ruling elite, and the overturning of it was in response to the perceived [i.e. short-term] interests of the median voter. The main reason that Gove appeared unpopular with parents in Crosby’s focus groups, was his insistence on rigorous examination standards and the attempt to return to a traditional (ie academically challenging) core curriculum. David Cameron and the vast majority of the cabinet supported Gove’s strategy but he was sacrificed for purely electoral purposes (another factor being the need to reduce the alienation of teachers and other public-sector workers).
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Filed under: education, Elections, Opinion polling, Press, schools | 4 Comments »

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