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 the Internet. I know it because months ago I actively searched and only happened upon one or two posts.

There are some quick, easy remedies for the issue. Here are three.

First, “tags” help posts appear in search results. For example the page we’re on should not only be filed under its current “categories” but it should also include tags taken from the post itself and words that someone is likely to search under. On this post, “direct democracy, deep democracy, participatory democracy, electoral systems, alternatives to elections, sortition, selection by lot, sortition in the judiciary, experts and democracy, representation, etc….” The more the better. You can create a template of recurring “tags” and then adjust it to the particular post by adding or deleting.

Second, a “@Kleroterians” or “@EbyL” on Twitter could spread the word about new posts from and anything that you would like out to the general public. If you’d like, I could to set-up and (co)manage either account, and to spread word through my own social media circles as well.

Third, is the easiest. This blog should have a .com or .org. It costs $10 for the first $5 for the second. To keep everything the same, i.e. have the url changed (redirected) WP asks $13/year. It is something to consider, that would make it just a bit easier for someone to find EbyL or to type it into a browser.

Filed under: meta | 9 Comments »

Readers’ responses

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Yoram Gat

This is my summary of points raised in the comment thread for my article in Haayal Hakore.

Representativity of sortition

  1. Would the sampled delegates produce representative policy?

    1. Would they bother to spend the effort to study public policy?

    2. Wouldn’t they be easy to manipulate?

    3. Wouldn’t they be easy to bribe?

    4. Wouldn’t they promote narrow interests, hoping to be rewarded later?

  2. Since there are many population characteristics, the sample would be unrepresentative according to some of those.

  3. If people can opt out, then shy people and people with interesting personal lives would be under-represented.

  4. The training and service experiences would likely cause people to change their minds about various issues and in this way become unrepresentative.

  5. Sampling probabilities – how likely is misrepresentation due to chance variations?

  6. Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 9 Comments »

Sortition: a democratic alternative to the electoral system

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Yoram Gat

In order to achieve representative government political officers must be selected as a statistical sample of the population

This essay is an English version of an essay of mine that was recently published in Hebrew on the Israeli website Haayal Hakore. A lively discussion followed in the comment thread. I hope to pursue some the topics raised by commenters in upcoming posts.

2011 has seen an outpour of popular frustration with government. Mass demonstrations erupted in both Arab countries and Western countries. Over a year later, it appears that the results of the Arab Spring are very different from the results of the Western protests. While in some Arab countries the protests led to an overthrow of the government and significant political changes, the protest in the West dissipated almost everywhere leaving very little impact on the political structure. (Some claim that the protests in the West increased public political awareness and activism, but even if such claims are to be believed, political institutions were unaffected; the only exception is Iceland where some structural change has taken place.)

The difference between the outcomes in Arab countries and in the West can be explained by a fundamental difference in the agendas of the protests. The protesters in the Arab countries had a very clear and specific demand – removing an unelected, or only nominally elected, government and establishing an electoral system similar to the Western model. The Western protesters on the other hand expressed discontent with government policy, but had no clear demands about how things should be changed. The general message of the protest in the West was that public policy is not as it should be – it is serving the elites (“the 1%”) rather than serving the bulk of the population (“the 99%”). But while policy demands were sometimes presented (with varying degrees of coherence and emphasis) no program was laid out of how government should be changed in order to promote policy change.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 97 Comments »

Korean Greens vote with sortition democracy

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Yoram Gat

An item on the Asia Pacific Greens Network website:

Dear Greens,

I am very happy to inform all of you that Korean Greens finished its 1st representative congress successfully last 16th March 2013. This congress has been done based on 100% sortition democracy principle, which was the first-ever try in Korean political history. We GPK made our 134 representatives by sortition with consideration of locality, gender and age. We also procured the 10% portion for minority groups including underage, disabled and LGBTIQ. The 63% of our representatives from all over the country(16 cities and provinces) attended the congress in Seoul and discussed GPK’s action plan and budget of this year.

We GPK suppose this congress could be an successful example for the idea of sortition democracy, and would like to share our experience with all green friends of the globe. If you have any questions or want more information about it, please feel free to contact me. I attached a slide show link showing the atmosphere of the congress spot (http://www.flickr.com//photos/kgreens/sets/72157633025061210/show/) and video link showing the procedure of the sortition in which 9 local parties of GPK participated.(http://youtu.be/jLoPGyxGEaA)

Regards,

June Gyeon Lee

International Secretary, Green Party of Korea

Filed under: Applications, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Plato: The equality of the lot

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Badiblogger draws attention in a comment on the Literature page to the fact that Plato’s Laws discusses sortition.

In a passage in book VI Plato explains that it is sometimes necessary – contrary to the requirements of justice – to bow to popular pressure and use “the equality of the lot”:

The old saying, that “equality makes friendship,” is happy and also true; but there is obscurity and confusion as to what sort of equality is meant. For there are two equalities which are called by the same name, but are in reality in many ways almost the opposite of one another; one of them may be introduced without difficulty, by any state or any legislator in the distribution of honours: this is the rule of measure, weight, and number, which regulates and apportions them. But there is another equality, of a better and higher kind, which is not so easily recognized. This is the judgment of Zeus; among men it avails but little; that little, however, is the source of the greatest good to individuals and states. For it gives to the greater more, and to the inferior less and in proportion to the nature of each; and, above all, greater honour always to the greater virtue, and to the less less; and to either in proportion to their respective measure of virtue and education. And this is justice, and is ever the true principle of states, at which we ought to aim, and according to this rule order the new city which is now being founded, and any other city which may be hereafter founded. To this the legislator should look – not to the interests of tyrants one or more, or to the power of the people, but to justice always; which, as I was saying, the distribution of natural equality among unequals in each case. But there are times at which every state is compelled to use the words, “just,” “equal,” in a secondary sense, in the hope of escaping in some degree from factions. For equity and indulgence are infractions of the perfect and strict rule of justice. And this is the reason why we are obliged to use the equality of the lot, in order to avoid the discontent of the people; and so we invoke God and fortune in our prayers, and beg that they themselves will direct the lot with a view to supreme justice. And therefore, although we are compelled to use both equalities, we should use that into which the element of chance enters as seldom as possible.

Filed under: Athens, Books, Proposals, Sortition | 9 Comments »

Belgiorno-Nettis: The biggest challenge is to believe in ourselves

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, founder of newDemocracy, endorses Alex Zakaras’s allotted “Citizens’ Senate” in his TEDxSydney talk:

My take on this proposal and exchange with Zakaras are here: The elected legislator’s burden, Lottery and Legislative Powers: A Reply to Yoram Gat, and Limiting the allotted chamber’s powers – a foundational argument.

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

“Absolutely fundamental deficits in understanding”

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Yoram Gat

A British judge was very unhappy with the jury in a high-profile trial last week:

Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of the disgraced cabinet minister Chris Huhne, faces a retrial next week over taking speeding points for him because a jury failed to reach a verdict, after suffering what the judge described as “absolutely fundamental deficits in understanding”.

The Guardian seemed to concur:

Mr Justice Sweeney discharged the panel of eight women and four men following more than 15 hours of deliberations, and a day after they submitted 10 questions that indicated they had not grasped the basics of their task,

but assembled a set of professionals defending the jury institution:
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Juries, Press | 12 Comments »

A Belgian MP calling for sortition

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Louis Laurent, a Belgian MP, is calling for the use of sortition in order to achieve “true representation” (machine translation with my touch-ups):

Louis Laurent demands the dissolution of “all political parties” responsible, according to him, for the current poor governance, corruption and cronyism at all levels of government.

Laurent demands the creation of a “citizen” parliament assembled by sortition, in order to guarantee true representation.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Press, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Sortition adovcacy in Chile

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Tomas Mancebo wrote to point out an article in a Chilean alternative publication, El Ciudadano, advocating sortition.

Mauricio Vergara writes (machine translation with my touch-ups):

The Greeks discovered the blunder of representative democracy and it took them 800 years to eliminate the oligarchy and institute a distinct democratic design.

The solution was the creation of a large assembly, where members are selected by lot, yes! … A raffle, where those citizens who meet certain requirements have equal opportunity to be selected and to influence the country’s policies as representatives.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Press, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Beyond the principle of distinction

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Yoram Gat

The primary negative effect of the electoral system is the obverse of its ostensible function. This effect is what Bernard Manin called “the principle of distinction” – the delegation of political power to people whose situation and outlook is significantly different from those of the population at large. As a result of this difference, the political elite serves interests that are different from, and often antithetical to, those of the average voter.

However, the electoral system is often presented by academic advocates and by electoral activists and politicians as providing a value to society above and beyond its function for selecting government officials. It supposedly encourages meaningful popular participation in government through voting, informed discussion, organized activism in electoral campaigns and awareness of the importance of compromise and coalition building. In fact, the electoral system encourages none of those patterns – on the contrary: it is antithetical to them. This is due to several characteristics of the electoral system that are not consequences of the principle of distinction.

  1. Politics as competition The electoral system is a mechanism in which groups compete for power. Allocation of power through competition has several related effects:
    • When political power is gained through competition, its attainment comes to be seen, primarily by the winners themselves but by others as well, as a reward. Corruption – use of the hard won political power to further the interests of the winners and their associates – then becomes a natural consequence of the achievement.
    • Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Participation, Sortition | 45 Comments »

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