Poulin-Litvak: Sortition as a means to fight corruption

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Yoram Gat

A new paper by David Poulin-Litvak has the following abstract:

Electoral democracy is in crisis. The use of sortition in our political systems could be a key to renewing and deepening democracy. But how to do so? And where to start? In this paper, I explore the idea that using sortition to address the problem of corruption could be a first step. Why? For two reasons. First, corruption of elected officials is an internal inconsistency of electoral democracy – it cannot be resolved adequately through electoral institutions. Second, there is also a large consensus on the fact – everybody agrees – that corruption is a problem.

I suggest granting the power to convene an Investigation Commission to a randomly selected citizen body. This body should also nominate the Commission’s head and receive its recommendations. I also discuss the idea of a Citizens’ Court to directly address the problem of corruption of elected officials. This broad jury would judge and sanction corrupted elected officials. Taking Quebec’s ongoing corruption saga as an example, I also try to see how the system would work in reality and, finally, where the system, once put into place, could lead to.

Filed under: Academia, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

ParPolity

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Tomas Mancebo wrote to point out a proposal for a constitutional system by Stephen Shalom called Participatory politics, or ParPolity, which contains a sortition-based element.

The main part of the proposal is a “nested councils” structure – a standard proposal of a hierarchical structure of elected bodies where each body elects a representative to a higher-level body:

Unlike typical direct elections, a good political system must give people an organic connection to those they elect so they can adequately monitor their performance and remove them when necessary. There cannot be large or remote constituencies that render monitoring impossible or even burdensome.

Unlike typical indirect elections, a good political system must ensure that the people’s will does not get attenuated through each intermediate level of voting.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Write a note to George Monbiot

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Update: Monbiot responded as follows:

Interesting: many thanks for this Yoram. G

George Monbiot is frustrated with government:

Most of the world’s people are decent, honest and kind. Most of those who dominate us are inveterate bastards. This is the conclusion I’ve reached after many years of journalism. Writing on Black Monday, as the British government’s full-spectrum attack on the lives of the poor commences, the thought keeps returning to me.

He asks:

So the age-old question comes knocking: why does the decent majority allow itself to be governed by a brutal, antisocial minority?

He is looking for inspiring, transfiguring ideas that will show a way out of this predicament. Please join me and write a note to Monbiot to offer sortition as such a crucial idea.

Here is what I wrote:

Continue reading →

Filed under: Action, Press, Sortition | 11 Comments »

A. H. J. Greenidge: Appointment by lot in Athens

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Yoram Gat

In 1896 A. H. J. Greenidge published his book A Handbook of Greek Constitutional History. Greenidge devotes a few pages to sortition (“appointment by lot”). He proposes theoretical justification and analysis of the effects of the mechanism.

At this point we may naturally raise the question, “What is the meaning of this new element in political life which was destined to become almost the most characteristic feature of the Athenian and other democracies?” From the treatment of the lot by Plato and Aristotle we should be inclined to gather that it was a consciously adopted democratic institution, that it was the final assertion of the numerical equality of all citizens and of the principle of equal representation. But to realise this character it must be accompanied by universal admission to office. We know, however, that the use of the lot preceded universal admission; we shall see, when we come to discuss the qualifications for office, that in early Athens it was an assertion of the equal fitness for rule of the members of only a narrow circle; and we are further informed that in some cases of its employment it had other meanings than that of an assertion of equality. Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Books, History | 22 Comments »

Mencken: The two kinds of democracy

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Yoram Gat

H.L. Mencken‘s 1927 book Notes on Democracy is an interesting document. On the one hand it is a candid expression of a proud elitist worldview. Mencken spends considerable space explicitly denigrating the average person. In short:

There are men who are naturally intelligent and can learn, and there are men who are naturally stupid and cannot. (p. 17)

Such views cannot be expressed in polite society today, and although it is pretty clear that Mencken is aware that his stridency is politically incorrect, it is also pretty clear that he is expressing ideas that were acceptable, even conventional wisdom, in elite circles of his time.

On the other hand, Mencken devotes much attention to the problems of the electoral process as well (which he identifies with democracy). His anti-democratic attitude allows him to criticize the electoral system in a way that those with commitments either to the existing system or to democracy usually cannot afford. As Mencken damns voters for being stupid and electoral politicians for being scoundrels, Mencken points at several problematic fundamental characteristics of the system, belying his main thrust which focuses on personal characteristics. Here, for example, is the principle of distinction:

Democratic man is stupid, but he is not so stupid that he does not see the government as a group of men devoted to his exploitation that is, as a group external to his own group, and with antagonistic interests. (p. 197)

Mencken’s treatment of “direct democracy” – the standard remedy for the problems of the electoral system – is rather insightful: Continue reading →

Filed under: Books, Elections, History, Participation | 13 Comments »

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 »

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