Japan’s energy future too important to be left to experimental polling method

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Yoram Gat

An opinion piece in The Mainichi:

Yoroku: Japan’s energy future too important to be left to experimental polling method

Once upon a time, in ancient Athens, state policy was decided not by elected representatives, but by a great assembly of all eligible citizens. Five hundred of these citizens were also chosen by lot for the Bouletai, or council, which spent time deliberating the issues facing Athens and drawing up bills for the assembly’s consideration.

In the modern world, a small-scale version of this selection by lot and the group deliberation that was such an important part of Athenian democracy is being resurrected by U.S. academics in the form of deliberative polls.
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Filed under: Athens, Press, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Nissani: Cheers for Direct Democracy

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Dr. Moti Nissani writes in The Dissident Voice:

Revolutionary strategists must ask themselves: How can we best structure our own movement? And: What kind of political framework should we aim for, once we relegate the Banking-Militarist Complex to the dustbin of history? The answer to both questions is the same: genuine (or direct) democracy.

Democracy, for the Greeks who coined the word, meant “power of the people” or “rule of the people.” Perhaps the best-known example of a genuine democracy in a highly-advanced, highly-literate, polity, is Athens and its sister democracies of Ancient Greece. There, all significant political, legal, and judicial decisions were made directly by the people. Democratic Athens went to war if, and only if, the majority so voted; a man was exiled, or condemned to death, if, and only if, his fellow citizens so decreed.

It is a typical reformist treatment of the Athenian system. Sortition is discussed in the context of juries, but its application to political offices is given barely a mention:

The Athenians knew that power-seekers could not be trusted, so they filled many important public offices by lot. Moreover, most office holders maintained their positions for extremely short durations. Athens thereby bypassed, to a certain extent, a key problem in all other extant political systems: The ascendancy of the psychopaths.

Filed under: Athens, History, Participation, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Klirosi posters

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Klirosi sent a couple of election posters they created with the titles “It’s us or them” and “See the future”:

Filed under: Elections, Sortition | Leave a comment »

κλήρωση

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Yoram Gat

κλήρωση, Greek for “lottery” or “drawing of lots” (as Google Translate tells me), is a Greek website advocating sortition.

The site presents sortition as follows (Google Translate, with some of my own touch-ups):

The Lottery

We know that you are tired of political parties and politicians. You do not want to see them, let alone hear them: tell you what you want to hear in order to gain power, and then pursue government policies other than those that were voted for.

You wonder what is the reason to vote…

The lottery is a way to finally achieve a truly representative democracy. To solve a problem that is not only Greek, but global. Greece can be talked about everywhere, not a corrupt country, but as a country of innovation, leadership and democracy. An example to follow.

Just do not expect saviors. Just believe in yourself.

Sortition is aimed at regeneration of the democratic political system based on the belief that only democracy can lead to improving the lives, dignity and ολβιότητας[?] of the Greeks. The basic principle of the movement coincides with one of the basic principles of democracy as implemented by Solon, Cleisthenes, Pericles and was described by Thucydides and Aristotle.

The Republic is achieved not solely through elections, but especially through sortition.

Filed under: Sortition | 3 Comments »

Opportunity for easy online activism

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Yoram Gat

David Grant wrote to draw attention to an online proposition and voting exercise at Slate magazine. Readers are asked to propose pieces of reform for the U.S. constitution and to vote for their favorite proposals.

David wrote a proposal titled “Use sortition, not elections, for a Citizen House“.

Browsing around at random, I found a similar proposal: “Select our representatives by lottery“.

Voting for those proposals is an easy way to highlight the idea of sortition. Registration to the site (free and easy) is needed in order to vote. You can vote more than one proposal.

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 20 Comments »

Ordinary citizens? Are you crazy?

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Harvard Magazine has an article about Lawrence Lessig’s reform proposals. Lessig has been promoting his proposal for “democracy vouchers”, but it turns out that he has another proposal to make – a Constitutional Convention selected by sortition:

[Lessig] writes: “I recognize that of all the insanity strewn throughout this book, this will strike readers as the most extreme. Ordinary citizens? Are you crazy? Proposing amendments to our Constitution? When two-thirds of Americans can’t even identify what the Bill of Rights is?”

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

Iñaki Berazaluce: Por qué es mejor elegir a los diputados al azar

Posted on June 9, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Pluchino et al. are invoked by Iñaki Berazaluce:

350 diputados y 208 senadores, elegidos por sufragio universal cada cuatro años para votar como un solo hombre los designios de sus respectivos partidos. ¿Es esta democracia la mejor posible?, ¿es la única posible? Unos científicos italianos han demostrado que el sistema sería más eficiente si un determinado número de legisladores (no todos, de momento) fueran escogidos al azar entre todos los ciudadanos en lugar de ser elegidos en las urnas.

This article generated some lively discussion on Menéame (noted by Tomaso Mancebo).

Filed under: Sortition | Leave a comment »

Sintomer: Tirage au sort et démocratie délibérative

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Yoram Gat

An article by Yves Sintomer discusses, among other things, reasons for the avoidance of sortition by 18th century revolutionaries. English translation by John Zvesper.

Bernard Manin first raised the question of why with modern revolutions sortition disappeared from the political scene. His answer was based on two observations: first, the founding fathers of modern republics wanted elective aristocracies, and for this reason they rejected random selection, which Plato and Aristotle had connected with democracy. Second, the theory of consent, deeply rooted in theories of natural law, was so widespread that it seemed difficult to legitimize any political authority that was not formally approved by the citizenry.

Both of these arguments are important, but they do not explain everything. […]

The unavailability of the statistical concept of the representative sample (even though probability calculus was already well developed by the time of the American and French Revolutions) is the key to understanding why political sortition seemed useless in modern democracies, whose size – as almost no political writer in this period failed to point out – made it impossible to have self government similar to that of the ancient democracies. In this conceptual world, drawing lots meant arbitrarily giving power to someone. Lacking the idea of the representative sample, the proponents of descriptive representation were forced to choose other tools to advance their ideals.

Filed under: Athens, History, Sortition | 11 Comments »

Down With Free Elections! Part 2

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Part 2 of a post by Campbell Wallace. Part 1 is here.

There are some matters that were not touched on, or were skimmed over, in my first article.

(Note: I shall continue to refer to the members of legislative bodies as MPs, which you may translate “representatives” or “deputies” or whatever. Similarly for “House”, “Chamber”, and “Parliament”; translate to what is appropriate in your country.)

One House or Two?

This will depend on the circumstances of the country involved. In a very small country, a city-state for instance, it might be adequate to have a single House chosen from all the community with no geographical circumscriptions. In a large country one might have one chamber chosen from the entire population, with a second chamber, chosen by geographic regions like today’s electorates, in order to protect local interests. Although I am not convinced of the absolute necessity of this latter approach, a good case can be made for an Upper House or Senate as a “House of Review” with powers limited to referring legislation back to the lower house with amendments. The fact that this slows legislation down is generally regarded as a good thing; laws should not be rushed.

Number of MPs

Again, this will depend on the circumstances of the country. There is nothing magical about the number 500 which I have suggested; more might be appropriate for a large country. For a small country some smaller number might be chosen, but it would be a false economy to make the number too small. It should be noted, though, that with a new ballot every six months, even a number smaller than ideal should give reasonable fairness; even if the representation is a bit skewed at any one moment, over a period of time things will even out. I think 200 might be a reasonable lower limit for a very small country.
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Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 31 Comments »

Down With Free Elections!

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Yoram Gat

A post by Campbell Wallace:

It is universally accepted that free elections guarantee the happiness of a nation.

At a time when men and women risk their lives and die for democracy it may seem indecent, even sacrilegious to criticise it. I do not write in order to mock those who struggle heroically against tyranny. But where is the evidence that the longed-for democratic elections are any better than chance as a method of choosing leaders?

Of course, voting an unwanted leader out of office (when it works!) is much better than bombs, kalashnikovs, or foreign invasions. It is in choosing politicians that the vote fails so miserably. I hardly have to justify this statement: everyone can think of examples of incompetent, corrupt, dishonest – or worse – democratically elected leaders, even though we would not all draw up the same list.
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Filed under: Elections, Sortition | 21 Comments »

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